We wish to tackle an argument that has been used repeatedly during the recent media coverage of the medical and moral issues raised by the death of Jeffrey Spector. Mr Spector had a spinal tumour and travelled from here to Switzerland to kill himself at a clinic run by Dignitas. Mr Spector was not terminally ill. The tumour would eventually have paralysed him from the neck down. When he died, Mr Spector was (apart from some numbness in his fingers) walking, talking, eating and drinking pretty much as normal – as far as it is possible for any man in such a horrific situation to be doing anything “as normal”. He was 54 and was married with three daughters in their teens and early twenties. We should stress that we are making no judgement on Mr Spector’s actions: for