The ‘Lancet Commission on the Value of Death’ has much to commend it, says James Le Fanu.
Like many before me, I find myself at that stage of life when those known – or known of – now feature regularly in the obituary columns. This inevitably prompts reflections on their closing years and the manner of their dying. For Pope Benedict it would seem to have been as good as it could be. The details of his final illness have not been disclosed, but there remains the impression that it encompassed the several desirable attributes set out in the recently published “Lancet Commission on the Value of Death”: free from physical pain and psychological stress, not prolonged unnecessarily and sustained by the emotional support of family and friends and the rituals of faith.
