Pratchett Promotes Voluntary Euthanasia

Sir Terry Pratchett, who was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s in 2007, is arguing for the legalization of assisted suicide in the UK. Pratchett says Alzheimer’s “is not nice and I do not wish to be there for the endgame.”

Pratchett, the first novelist to deliver the annual BBC Dimbleby lecture, used his speech, “Shaking Hands with Death,” to advocate for the rights of the terminally ill, and even volunteered to be a test case before a euthanasia tribunal.

Says Pratchett: “If granny walks up to the tribunal and bangs her walking stick on the table and says ‘Look, I’ve really had enough, I hate this bloody disease, and I’d like to die thank you very much young man’, I don’t see why anyone should stand in her way.”

Full story at the Guardian.