NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE

L
ast week, Pope Francis warned his general audience against euthanasia, saying that “we must accompany people towards death, but not provoke death or facilitate any form of suicide.” He’s right that the moral musts and must nots of caring for the dying are connected — and that the overmedicalization of the end of life has, in effect, helped blur what ought to be a red line.

“How people die has changed dramatically over the past 60 years, from a family event with occasional medical support, to a medical event with limited family support,” explained Libby Sallnow, a palliative-medicine consultant and co-chair …