Abstract

In their three thoughtful commentaries on my essay, Prentice, Mahoney and Moore and Lantos reflect on the challenges that I set out: can we make sense of the notion of a good death, and can we use art and music to provide any insights into it?1–3 I was thinking about these questions again while reading this week of yet another UK legal dispute relating to life-sustaining treatment for a child. In January, the High Court heard the case of Pippa Knight, a 5-year-old girl with profound brain injury who is in a persistent vegetative state, and has been ventilated in an intensive care unit for a protracted period.4 All of the experts giving evidence in the case agreed that Pippa lacks any ability to feel pain and that there is sadly no prospect of improvement. Her mother (and some of the experts) believed that, given the absence of pain, it would not be harmful and would be in Pippa’s best interests to attempt to transition her to long-term ventilation at home. Pippa’s treating doctors contended that it would be in her …