* * * * The Right to Die The Medical
Officer of Health for Leicester has drafted a Bill to make voluntary euthanasia legal. The subject is far too important to be thrust on one side by the political controversies of the moment, and though, of course, the Bill in question stands not the smallest chance of passage into law at present, and will very likely never even be introduced, it ought at least to stimulate a serious discussion of a problem far too long deliberately side-tracked. The proposal. that a person suffering from an incurable and acutely painful disease should be permitted, after legal authorization based on the most exhaustive examination of the case, to pass painlessly out of life at his own desire raises fundamental issues in the fields of law, of medicine and of religion. Reasoned objections and traditional prejudiees will be ranged against it. There are few who would care to pronounce dogmatically either against the proposal or for it without prolonged and anxious reflection. But Dr. Millard, by once more giving the idea of euthanasia concrete form, has made it certain that the subject will be seriously explored.
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