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The author of this challenging view of human existence explores the rationale for legally allowing people to choose their time and method of death. After many years of life, whether in sickness, health, or simple loneliness, anyone might ponder release from their earthly bindings. “A Human” postulates a “death card,” similar to current lawful stipulations that allow a person to give blood or donate an organ. As detailed here, the death permission would make it possible for even healthy individuals from whatever long-term outlook to choose the time and method of their own demise.
As the book's proposal takes shape, the author communicates with persons nearing death and with their close ones, with a couple who wish to depart peacefully together, and with those on the periphery of the journey who recognize its rationale in this fresh perspective. The death card could also generate facilities for the parting to take place, which are described here in detail. These and other aspects seem rife with probability in a period when so many other radical shifts have taken hold in human experience.
The author believes that many may welcome “a wish that I believe is the wish of many.” The idea developed here is seen as a process of personal, philosophical contemplation and consultation with others. As the myriad potentials of choosing one’s time and method of passing are parsed, the author also offers credible reasons for taking on this challenging subject, recalling in subjective passages the development of the writing skills needed to share and inspire the initiative set forth. The institution of an individual’s death control and the weighty ideas it evokes—“a spark,” as the author suggests, “that may begin a flame”—will doubtless attract the attention of thoughtful readers across a varied range of interests, ideals, and intellectual curiosity.