Angels of Death: Exploring the Euthanasia Underground.(Book Review)

First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life, November, 2002 by Smith, Wesley J.

By ROGER S. MAGNUSSON. Yale University Press. 306 pp. $35.

Roger S. Magnusson opines that mercy killing should be legalized and regulated because, in no small part, "illicit euthanasia" is already practiced. But so too are incest and self-mutilation, and no reasonable person would suggest that those activities should be given the sanction of law. To make his argument, Magnusson relies primarily on an analysis of the Dutch experience with euthanasia and upon anecdotes from the euthanasia "underground," particularly among AIDS patients. Not only does he fail to note the remarkable success of St. Christopher's Hospice in London with treating AIDS patients, which demonstrates that the delivery of good palliative care and emotional support leads to remarkably few...

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