Abstract
Under other circumstances, I would have written an academic paper rehearsing the arguments for and against legalization of physician-assisted suicide: autonomy and the avoidance of pain and suffering on the pro side, the wrongness of killing, the integrity of the medical profession, and the risk of abuse, the “slippery slope,” on the con side. I’ve always supported the pro side. What this paper is, however, is a highly personal account of the challenges to my thinking about right-to-die issues. In November 2008, my husband suffered a C2/C3 spinal cord injury in a bicycle collision, leaving him ventilator-dependent, almost completely paralyzed, and in the hospital—but fully alert and profoundly self-reflective. What if he wanted to die? This paper draws from two multimedia presentations—file:///Users/margaretbattin/Documents/BROOKE’S%20ACCIDENT/The%20Salt%20Lake%20Tribune%20%7C%20Multimedia:%20Metamorphosis.webarchive and file:///Users/margaretbattin/Documents/BROOKE’S%20ACCIDENT/The%20Salt%20Lake%20Tribune%20%7C%20Multimedia:%20Learning%20to%20live%20again.webarchive—and personal material concerning quality of life (he’d rank at the bottom on the SF-36 and similar scales) and concerning autonomy (his own accounts, verbatim). This is a detailed portrait of a man whose life involves extraordinary suffering but also luminous experience some of the time. It only makes the question harder: What if he wanted to die?
References
Bronsteen, J., C. Buccafusco, and J. Masur. 2009. Well-being analysis. http://ssrn.com/abstract=1397843, p. 2.
Chang, R. (ed.). 1997. Incommensurability, incomparability and practical reason. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Ubel, P.A., G. Loewenstein, N. Schwarz, D. Smith. 2005. Misimagining the unimaginable: the disability paradox and health care decision making. Health Psychology 24(4(Suppl)):S57–S62.
Whalley, H.K. 2007. Quality of life after spinal cord injury: a meta-synthesis of qualitative findings. Spinal Cord 45(2): 124–139. Epub 7 Nov 2006.
Wolff, J., and A. De-Shalit. 2007. Disadvantage. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Multimedia links
Metamorphosis: file:///Users/margaretbattin/Documents/BROOKE’S%20ACCIDENT/The%20Salt%20Lake%20Tribune%20%7C%20Multimedia:%20Metamorphosis.webarchive.
Learning to Live Again: file:///Users/margaretbattin/Documents/BROOKE’S%20ACCIDENT/The%20Salt%20Lake%20Tribune%20%7C%20Multimedia:%20Learning%20to%20live%20again.webarchive.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Battin, M.P. The irony of supporting physician-assisted suicide: a personal account. Med Health Care and Philos 13, 403–411 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11019-010-9274-z
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11019-010-9274-z