Cleary thinks the idea of a “best” death or even a “good” death is a little misleading, as if it’s a competition or something one can fail at.

Certainly, I will keep reading this series because the plot and the main character are just so damn good, but I’ll need to pace myself.The author of many acclaimed works, de Beauvoir was one of the most influential thinkers of her generation. Among nurses, there was consensus that this is the best way to go if you’re near death and in intensive care — you just fade out and pass, one ICU nurse told me. The introduction from Ali Smith is another bonus: it enhances your reading of the essay by briefly situating it in its historical and personal context. Her story appeared on the cover of People magazine, was featured on CNN, the Meredith Vieira Show, in USA Today, in the op-ed pages of the New York Times — you name it.

Even though it’s rapidly obvious Françoise’s survival is highly unlikely, her doctors insist on subjecting her to a series of painful regimes including invasive surgery. The reality is death from cancer,” says Cleary, “where you actually know it’s going to happen, and you can say goodbye. Some of the patients are homeless and, just as in their healthier days, have no one to comfort them.

His mother, Magda, lived to 103, but given her ever-increasing collection of age-related illnesses, he wrote in Contemporary Debates in Bioethics, “living longer seemed to her utterly pointless: the pain, the indignity and the growing communicative isolation overshadowed her native optimism and the joy she had always taken in being alive. My mother in law has terminal cancer and I work in Primary Care for the NHS and I am very passionate about end of life care and support. What can we do for other people, how we define ourselves by these roles that are really about what we can do, or what we have. When a will has been made, it is important to keep it up to date to take account of changes in circumstances. Someone like Brittany Maynard would likely stir the drug into a glass of juice, drink it, then await its effects.