Stories that appear on a newspaper's website often disappear after a week or two. So let me encourage you to hasten to www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/magazine/02suicide-t.html

to read a truly amazing story. The title is "Death in the Family," and it appeared in the December 2 issue of the New York Times Magazine.

When I run across an article brimming with insight, compassion, and a deep understanding of human frailty, I often say I will just write a few words--give a taste, if you will-- so that readers will have a real incentive to read the original. Then, too often, I write at great length, defeating the whole purpose. This time I will honor my own promise.

Written by Daniel Bergner, "Death in the Family" uses the family life of former Washington state Gov. Booth Gardner to meditate on efforts by pro-death organizations to get another physician-assisted suicide initiative on the ballot next year. Gardner, an immensely popular governor who served two terms, has Parkinson's disease. He is the public face of the campaign.

As Bergner observes, "He is 71, and his last campaign is driven by his desire to kill himself." Already alienated from his family, Gardner's vocal advocacy has further estranged him from his son, Doug.  

Two quick thoughts. First, Gardner makes no bones about seeing the proposed initiative as a "compromise," ostensibly confined to the terminally ill. "[H]e sees it as a first step," Bergner writes. "If he can sway Washington to embrace a restrictive law, then other states will follow. And gradually, he says, the nation's resistance will subside, the culture will shift and laws with more latitude will be passed."

Second, the profile of the Gardner family is complemented by the story of feminist Susan Wolf, whose own father, as he neared death, asked, "Is there any way to accelerate this?" Wolf, a professor in both the law and medical schools of the University of Minnesota, has written at great length about the incredible dangers that loosening suicide laws pose to women, minorities, and people with disabilities.

She did not "accelerate" her father's death. "I had a sense that there was a wall there, and that it was there for lots of reasons," Wolf told Bergner.

In a remarkably tender passage, Bergner tells us, "Her father had always loved it when she stroked his thick hair, and that was what she did at his bedside, over and over, while he waited."

A fabulous story, which I greatly encourage you to read. Again, it's found at www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/magazine/02suicide-t.html

Part Two