[from his book Prescription: Medicide - The Goodness of Planned Death, p. 214, para. 3] Under extraordinary circumstances like these I feel it is only decent and fair to explain my ultimate aim. I emphasized that it is not simply to help suffering or doomed persons kill themselves - that is merely the first step, an early distasteful professional obligation (now called medicide) that nobody in his or her right mind could savor. I explained that what I find most satisfying is the prospect of making possible the performance of invaluable experiments or other beneficial medical acts under conditions that this first unpleasant step can help establish - in a word, obitiatry, as defined earlier.