Endpiece: Trapped between two evils

doi:10.1136/bmj.324.7342.905/a

BMJ 2002;324:905 ( 13 April )

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Endpiece

Trapped between two evils

The consequences of this continuing modernist deconstruction of mortality have brought us to the current postmodernist impassein which dying patients are trapped between two evils: a runawaymedical technology of ventilators, surgeries, and organ transplantsthat can keep bodies alive indefinitely and $---$ as if this prospectwere not frightening enough $---$ an understandable but reckless publicclamor for physician-assisted suicide as the only alternativeto such ignominious physician-assistedsuffering.

David B Morris. Illness and culture in the postmodern age. Berkeley CA, London: University of California Press, 1998

Submitted by Iona Heath, general practitioner, London

© BMJ 2002

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