"I’m sorry, nothing can be done." There are probably no more terrible words than these. They mark the end of labor, the end of possibility, the end of hope.

The family holds vigil in the surgical waiting room. The dated magazines on the table have been read and re-read. The wall clock moves in slow motion, and the family waits. A dark spot on an X-ray demanded attention. "We just don’t know," the surgeon had said. "We’ll have to go in and check." Now he appears, a loosened surgical mask around his neck, his face lined with concern. "I’m sorry," he begins, "there’s nothing we can do."

A woman sits before a desk in a glass cubicle in the corner of a large room full of similar desks. She has spent the day in front of these desks, passed from one clerk to the next. She has been ignored and c…