Many have availed themselves of this compelling 21st-century argument in disparate countries and jurisdictions. Whether the dying ultimately ‘benefit’ from it is a matter of debate. With willing physicians and a compliant government involved, the moral bonds of society are inevitably beginning to fray. A lawsuit developing in New York state illustrates one way those threads unravel. The case centres on New York’s Catholic healthcare providers, consisting of several congregations of nuns, including the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm, and the Little Sisters of the Poor.