Abstract

KIE: Artificial heart recipient Barney Clark was given a key that would have allowed him to turn off the compressor that ran the heart if he had no longer wished to live tethered to a machine. Rachels argues that Clark's use of the key would have been suicide, refutes possible objections to the use of the term in this context, and sees ethical implications for social acceptance of suicide and voluntary euthanasia in the public act of giving Clark the key.