ABSTRACT
Euthanasia activists have been extremely successful in what Hendin (1995) terms ‘selling death’ by using state-of-the-art marketing and publicity strategies that have promoted the normalization of euthanasia and physician assisted suicide as bona fide medical treatments. Among the ultimate euthanasia advertisements promulgated is the case history, carefully designed ‘to show how necessary assisted suicide or euthanasia was’ in a particular given instance (Hendin 1995: 19). Another ultimate advertising strategy is to cast patients ‘as the noble individualist fighting to exercise the right to die’ (Hendin 1995: 19). Euthanasia advocates, in turn, often physicians willing to provide assistance to die and individuals willing to submit themselves for a ‘noble death’, tend to be cast as saints and heroes (some might say, martyrs) who are willing to sacrifice their own interests for ‘the cause’ and ‘the benefits of society’. 1
