"We never say no."

THERE IS A PRETENSE in contemporary assisted suicide advocacy that goes something like this: “Aid in dying” (as it is euphemistically called) is merely to be a safety valve, a last resort only available to imminently dying patients for whom nothing else can be done to alleviate suffering.

Meanwhile, in the real world, the founder of the Swiss suicide facilitating organization Dignitas is just about done with pretense. The Sunday Times Magazine (London) reported that Dignitas’ founder, Ludwig Minelli, plans to create sort of a Starbucks for suicide: a chain of death centers “to end the lives of people with illnesses and mental conditions such as chronic depression.”