The Death Treatment
In The New Yorker, Rachel Aviv investigates euthanasia, which in Belgium, “is embraced as an emblem of enlightenment and progress, a sign that the country has extricated itself from its Catholic, patriarchal roots.” Many Western countries have decriminalized euthanasia, including Canada and Switzerland. “But the laws seem to be motivated less by the desires of the elderly than by the concerns of a younger generation, whose members derive comfort from the knowledge that they can control the end of their lives,” Aviv writes.