Lethal temptation
From our UK edition
‘I want to die. Please help me.’ It was 2 a.m. in the good old days when patients had 24-hour cover by their own GPs. I knew Martin well. His bladder cancer had been diagnosed the year before, but more recently it had spread to the lymph nodes in his pelvis and he had run out of effective treatments. Martin had borne his illness with stoicism so far but on this night he was in terrible pain — both physical and existential. He asked to die more than once, and each time his request scared me, but not for any obvious reason. What alarmed me about Martin’s death wish, both at the time and now, looking back on it, is that had it been legal to kill him, I might well have done it.
