Seduced by death

Dr. Herbert Hendin, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who is a world-famous authority on suicide, studied cases of assisted suicide and euthanasia in the United States and in the Netherlands, where assisted suicide and euthanasia are accepted. By interviewing leading medical and legal architects of Dutch practices, and evaluating actual cases, Dr. Hendin reveals startling truths. He shows how assisted suicide and euthanasia differ in practice from the popular conception that they are an extension of the patients' rights movement, increasing each person's control over care. The Dutch experience provides clear evidence that practicing euthanasia and assisted suicide actually increases the power and control of doctors, who can suggest it without proposing obvious alternatives, who can ignore patients' ambivalence about dying, and who can even put to death patients without their request. Dr. Hendin addresses the difficult questions: Who actually makes the decision that a patient will die? How do the needs and character of family, friends, and doctors affect the choice? Dr. Hendin introduces us to a young American professional recently told he has leukemia, a Dutch man just diagnosed with AIDS, a healthy Dutch mother whose son has just died of cancer - all say they want to die. Then he demonstrates that what these people actually do varies with the options presented to them.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Philosophy. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.