The woman who committed suicide in Switzerland ... My God. What dignity. What courage. To have all your marbles and decide that before they are replaced with pain and humiliation, it is better to die. One thing, though. There was some television footage of her going to the clinic and I couldn't help thinking: why is she bothering to wear a seatbelt?

Dying well is part of living well and one day our society will surely recognize that. But I suppose we'll only know that we've reached that promised land on the day that the President of the Voluntary Euthanasia Society begins his address to the Annual General Meeting with the words: 'Tremendous news for the society. It's been our most successful year ever. So successful, indeed, that we now have no members at all.'

Euthanasia is a long, smooth-sounding word, and it conceals its danger as long, smooth-sounding words do, but the danger is there, nonetheless.

Euthanasia is a way of putting old people out of their family's misery.