|
It seems like only yesterday that the case of Karen Ann Quinlan
inserted the words "right to die" into the vocabulary
of every American. As recently as this year, the notion that
people have to fight for this right resonated with many moviegoers
as a compelling plot point in "Million Dollar Baby."
Yet in the three decades since Ms. Quinlan's parents first battled
the medical and legal systems for the right to have their comatose
daughter taken off life support, both the law and public opinion
have shifted dramatically.
When patients check into a hospital today, the 1990 Patient Self-Determination
Act mandates that they be given a document allowing them to specify
that they don't want to be kept alive under certain conditions.
Indeed, we've grown so accustomed to the normative idea that
there are fates worse than death that efforts by the parents
of Terri Schiavo to keep their brain-damaged daughter alive genuinely
surprise many people.
But norms can turn on a dime, it seems. As political, legal and
medical debates swirl about Ms. Schiavo, a new thought is sinking
into some minds: What if something happens to me in a system
no longer afraid to pull the plug, in a society that now presumes
I'd rather be dead?
"Where do you go to sign a living will saying you want them
to leave the tube in?" laments Slate columnist Mickey Kaus
on his Kausfiles blog. From Independent Women's Forum chairman
Heather Graham comes a similar plea: "This is terrifying.
Far from living wills being necessary to get us killed faster
[as we keep being told], I am getting one and officially telling
everyone...that whatever any guardian might someday allege, I
DO NOT want anyone to enable my death unless there is zero hope,
constant uncontrollable pain, and no one who cares enough to
come visit."
If only it were that simple. At Not Dead Yet, an organisation
of disability activists, the question of how to make sure nobody
hastens your demise against your wishes has long been an urgent
concern. Its Web site asserts that "legalised medical killing
is really about a deadly double standard for people with severe
disabilities, including both conditions that are labelled terminal
and those that are not."
The president of Not Dead Yet, Diane Coleman, says that her
organisation has seen cases where, for instance, authorities
overruled the life-maintenance directive of a guardian appointed
by the patient himself, or compelled a conscious disabled person
to die. That's as troubling to Ms. Coleman, who now needs a respirator
to help her breathe at night, as it is to other members of the
organisation. Demonstrating in her wheelchair with a "Feed
Terri" sign in Florida this week, Eleanor Smith -- a self-described
lesbian, liberal and agnostic -- told Reuters: "At this
point I would rather have a right-wing Christian decide my fate
than an ACLU member."
So here is where we have landed. By law, all the paralysed character
on a ventilator in the assisted-suicide drama of "Million
Dollar Baby" really had to do was tell doctors to let her
die. For those inspired, instead, by the title of the 1958 movie
"I Want To Live 1" the options are more clouded. Ms.
Coleman suggests giving a durable power of attorney to a trusted
person and making sure that he or she knows exactly what your
wishes are. Then hope that the system obeys them.
|
|
