I wonder, for instance, if our laws reflect some deep aversion amongst medical professionals here towards the idea of relinquishing control of the dying process into the hands of the patient. I wonder if this aversion might stem from a more general belief in the medical profession that death represents a form of failure. And I wonder if this belief hasn't seeped out into the wider world in the form of an aversion to the subject of death per se, as if the stark facts of mortality can be banished from our consciousness altogether.