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Terminally ill, in crippling pain, but fully aware, a patient may wish to shuffle off this proverbial mortal coil, but circumstances may preclude this. That is where the physician may help, or so argue Sheila McLean and Alison Britton in The Case for Physician Assisted Suicide (Pandora, £5.99, ISBN 0 04 440983 4). This short “case for” covers the ethics of a troubling area, but no amount of argument will change strong beliefs.