Live and let die

We will reflect together on a patient’s story as she approached the end of her life. Ethical and legal questions will be considered. When should we respect a patient’s choice to die? Should doctors work to preserve life or focus on removing suffering? What should the law allow or disallow? These are difficult questions, to which there may be no agreed answers. However, hopefully, by talking respectfully about death and dying, we can each decide what we might (not) want when our lives end.

In the latter decades of the 19th century, attempts to reign in the worst excesses of male behaviour intensified. English men were expected to live up to a standard of civilised respectability, and reject behaviours which were seen as primitive, degenerate or foreign. Legal attempts to limit male behaviour are the focus of this interactive talk, with violence between men its subject. The court cases considered remain important today - with reference still being made to them in courts today.