How does the brain process music?

aspire to an ideal of fully informed autonomy that is free from internal conflict and external pressure.Yet, in reality, most decisions at the end of life are messy and involve those who are physically and psychologically vulnerable.The option of assisted dying may in fact deny to some the gentle and easy death that would otherwise be theirs.What represents the greater injustice -not killing those who want it (and for whom alternatives are available), or killing those who do not really want it?Even in the Netherlands, which arguably has the most robust safeguards of any jurisdiction that allows assisted dying, the latest official survey concludes that the transparency envisaged by the Dutch law does not extend to all cases of euthanasia.3 It is then down to the arithmetic of suffering.How many patients dying under similar legislation, before they would otherwise have wanted, would be acceptable in order to provide for one particular version of a gentle and easy death?JEFFREY STEPHENSON Consultant in Palliative Medicine, St Luke's Hospice, Plymouth References