Lerner B H
Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, New York, NY, USA.
Suicide Life Threat Behav. 1995 Winter;25(4):508-12; discussion 513-8.
The publication of Derek Humphry's Final Exist in 1991 caused a large uproar. Although designed as a suicide manual for terminally ill persons, there has been considerable fear that the book's methods might be used by others, such as nonterminal elderly individuals who have made a "rational" decision to end their lives. This piece, a short story about an elderly couple that commits double suicide, explores rational suicide by using fiction, as opposed to a standard bioethical approach. Fiction does not provide answers, but rather highlights the ambiguities surrounding elder suicide, and reminds us to evaluate this issue in the context of individual life experiences.
德里克·汉弗莱1991年出版的《最后的出路》引发了轩然大波。尽管该书旨在作为绝症患者的自杀手册，但人们一直相当担心书中的方法可能会被其他人采用，比如那些做出“理性”决定结束生命的非绝症老年人。这篇短篇小说讲述了一对老年夫妇双双自杀的故事，它通过虚构手法探讨了理性自杀，与标准的生物伦理方法形成对比。小说并未提供答案，而是凸显了围绕老年人自杀的种种模糊之处，并提醒我们要在个人生活经历的背景下评估这一问题。
