Assisted Death in Europe and America: Four Regimes and Their Lessons
Advances in medical treatment now enable physicians to prolong life to a previously unknown extent, however in many instances these new techniques mean not the saving of life but prolonging the act of dying. In the eyes of many, medical technology has run out of control and contributes to unnecessary suffering. Hence the demand has arisen that patients should be entitled to choose death when pain and physical and mental deterioration have destroyed the possibility of a dignified and meaningful life and that their doctors should help them to realize this endeavor.
Unwilling to accept a suicide ruling after witnessing the death of the admittedly morbid Faith Usher, Archie Goodwin is assisted in the investigation by Nero Wolfe, who has been warned to stay away from the case.
2BR02B is a sc-fi story. The title is pronounced "2 B R naught 2 B", referencing the famous phrase "to be, or not to be" from Wm Shakespeare's Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. In this story, the title refers to the telephone number one dials to schedule an assisted suicide with the Federal Bureau of Termination. The text of the story in rtf and pdf is inxluded.
