On July 22 and again yesterday, I praised stories by Robin Marantz Henig in The New York Times about the right to die and one family's decisions about whether–and how–to end a life.
I should have also mentioned the impressive reporting and writing by a reporter on the scene, Peggy Fletcher Stack of The Salt Lake Tribune, who has followed the story with regular updates since at least September, 2009. She covered Brooke Hopkins's medical care, his long-awaited homecoming, and his resumption of writing and teaching at the University of Utah after a devastating bicycle accident.
She covered his death on July 31, and came back on August 18 with a long story on the events leading up to Hopkins's decision to have the equipment that was keeping him alive turned off.
It's a very sad story, but the reporting by Henig and Stack is a gift for anyone who struggling to understand what Hopkins faced and why he made the decision he did.
-Paul Raeburn
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