As the assisted suicide debate continues in the UK, the Dutch are considering going one step further and allow healthy, elderly people who are just "tired of living" to summon help to end things.
In what sounds like a sick April Fool three weeks early, the Daily Telegraph reports that, if petitioners are successful, non-medical staff would be trained as "suicide assistants" to hasten the expiry of those who "consider their lives complete".
The assistants would ensure that the patient is not suffering from temporary depression, which, apart from terminal illness, is surely the only reason why someone would want to end their life.
Would it not make more sense for the Dutch campaigners to call for a closer look at the causes of being "tired of life", as Dr Samuel Johnson would have said, than to promote a shift towards author Martin Amis's dream of suicide booths on street corners?
My memory goes back to Kurt Vonnegut Jr. - I can't remember which book - writing about ethical suicide parlours on street corners.There is nothing new out there.
Another reason to be tired of life, or feeling life is complete.
Hi Richard, Kurt Vonnegut mentions ethical suicidal parlours in two stories: "Welcome to the Monkey House" and "God Bless You, Mr Rosewater". Cheerful stuff, eh?
Mike