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POPSDeath In The Family "Yet the proposed law in Washington wouldn’t go far enough for Gardner. It wouldn’t include him. Parkinson’s isn’t terminal. The disease can leave the body trembling, contorted, rigid; it can rob the memory and muffle the voice; it can leave a person still and silent; but it doesn’t offer an end to its torture; it doesn’t kill. Gardner wants a law that would permit lethal prescriptions for people whose suffering is unbearable, a standard that can seem no standard at all; a standard that prevails in the Netherlands, the Western nation that has been boldest about legalizing aid in dying; a standard that elevates subjective experience over objective appraisal and that could engage the government and the medical profession in the administration of widespread suicide. What is unbearable? What level of acute or chronic physical pain would qualify? What degree of disability? Would physicians be writing suicide prescriptions for the depressed?"