“Mr. Hardy’s life is not worth prolonging according to a British government agency, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence.”

Yes, it’s actually called the NICE.

This is why our current stampede for euthanasia is a sort of natural judgment on our notion that the Imperial Autonomous Self has the right to trump human life. A culture that believes this, by a strange alchemy, winds up putting itself in the hands of bean counters who decide you are too expensive to live.