I embark upon this essay with a sense that I am an amateur writing for professionals, a dilettante addressing the committed. I am not a doctor or a nurse or a social worker, confronted in my daily rounds with the problem we discuss here; not even a lawyer, philosopher, or theologian trained to deal with its moral and legal implications. I am only a poet, novelist, critic—more at home in the world of words and metaphor than fact, which is to say, an expert, if at all, in reality once removed. I feel therefore like a Daniel in the Lions’ Den, or perhaps I mean rather a Lion in the Daniels’ Den—more victim than witness. Yet you have called upon me to testify and, with whatever fear and trembling, I have accepted.