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Frances H. Miller, JD; George J. Annas, JD, MPH
Boston University

JAMA. 1988;259(14):2095.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.

—"It's Over, Debbie,"¹ an account of a "mercy" killing, appeared in the Jan 8, 1988, A PIECE OF MY MIND column. There was no editorial comment, nor did JAMA use a standard publishing disclaimer stating that the views expressed by the author—who requested anonymity presumably to avoid accountability—were those of the writer alone. Are we to assume that JAMA, which presumably subjects its articles to peer review, at least implicitly sanctions the physician behavior depicted in the piece?

The author made a unilateral decision to end this suffering woman's existence without finding out what she really meant when she said, "Let's get this over with." She might have meant that she just wanted the vomiting to stop. When the physician returned with a syringe of morphine that was intended to kill the patient, telling her only that it "would let her relax," the patient might have . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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