At Vassar College, in the 1980s, the argument was usually framed with a thought-experiment: Imagine that you wake up in a hospital bed, hooked up to a machine and soon realize that if you disconnect yourself from the machine, the person in the next bed will die.

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No matter how many times I shot the blonde in the bed next to me, she simply wouldn't die.

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He was confined to a bed in the living room and was in pain, but had expressed no desire to die or to have anyone help him end his life, the jury heard.

BBC: London