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Marquette Elder's Advisor Volume 4 Article 12 Issue 2 Fall

A Natural : Twenty-Three Centuries Of Debate Beth Eisendrath

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Repository Citation Eisendrath, Beth (2002) "A Natural Right to Die: Twenty-Three Centuries Of Debate," Marquette Elder's Advisor: Vol. 4: Iss. 2, Article 12. Available at: http://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/elders/vol4/iss2/12

This Bookshelf is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at Marquette Law Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Marquette Elder's Advisor by an authorized administrator of Marquette Law Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. BOOKSHELF A Natural Right to Die:Twenty-Three Centuries Of Debate

By Beth Eisendrath A Natural Right to Die: dom to control the time and Twenty-Three Centuries Of manner of dying for the termi- Debate, by Raymond Whiting nally ill is a fundamental right Many people are concerned with which are born. he essence of This idea of fundamental law about the right to choose natural law laid the groundwork for such principles, as rights as the right of free speech how and when to die, for in-corporated and religious freedom. themselves and their elders. 44Tinto the Con- The controversy over stitution, is that each American is a recent phenome- This book explores our enjoys the right to self-owner- non dating from about the 19th ship, which may well include the century and paralleling the 1 changing attitudes about right to die as one sees fit." development of life-extending "Whether we are reading medical technology. Whiting is throughout U.S. his- about the most recent exploits of informed and passionate as he tory, and looks to natural Dr. Kevorkian or being admitted chronicles the history of the into a local hospital for surgery, right to die. He points out that law to clarify the contempo- all of us are exhorted to come to part of the problem is that the grips with our personal opinion term "euthanasia" does not dis- rary mercy killing debate. about how we wish to be treated tinguish between active and pas- should the normal course of our sive euthanasia. Whiting also Beth Eisendrath, J.D., is a partner lives be disrupted and we be sees that there is a spectrum in the Milwaukee-area law firm of faced with a life less than what Darwish, Trueblood, Eisendrath & between aggressive or proactive we have been conditioned to Schneider, LLP, which specializes pain control, and hastening a in serving the needs of small busi- believe is complete. Under such person's death. In addition, nesses and older individuals who conditions, how would we Whiting is concerned that need help navigating the legal sys- react? Would we want to live, or Americans have allowed the tem, especially in rapidly changing would we want society to allow right-to-die debate to draw 2 areas such as elder law, computer us to die?" themselves away from the real and Internet law, immigration law, The author theorizes that free- issue, which is, in the United and workplace law.

80 | Bookshelf ('AlCOLUMN H M I P ^Iicholf 81

States, euthanasia is an often- Whiting begins with an explo- trol over dying. Whiting also used choice. ration of changing attitudes looks at the concept of natural Whiting defines passive toward death through American law and the historical environ- euthanasia as "[wihether a per- history. In his view, ment surrounding debate on the son facing imminent death has as religion was replaced by right to die. He views natural the right to order removal of life- the modern paradigm of law theory as key to the devel- 3 sustaining procedures." He science, the individual opment of Western political argues that the state may not gradually began to recog- thought, tracing its origins back control life, as long as neither nize increased control over to the Greek Stoics, in about 300 citizens' quality of life nor the his or her own destiny as B.C. He also notes that Thomas state's character is threatened. well as nature Jefferson relied on natural law as The right to self-determination is itself... .Death was trans- a core principle of the bolstered by the addition of the formed from a social Declaration of Independence right to privacy, which preserves process to a merely biologi- and that "natural law theory has personal issues from public or cal one. Science took a hold served as one of the cornerstones state examination, as long as over the role of the , for the development of social others' lives are not adversely as medical treatment contract theory and the evolu- affected. For Whiting, the issue became the backbone for a tion of the theory of individual is one of personal conscience. terminally ill patient, and rights that played such an He goes on to define the right the role of the family important role in both the to active euthanasia as whether a decreased from loving and American and the French revolu- terminally ill person may act to sincere care to an almost tions."6 end his or her life. He contends obligatory support. Death The reader becomes mired in that the government may regu- was stripped of its spiritual the chapters that simply outline late, but cannot regulate the and social quality, turned the history of natural law, means out of existence. Whiting into a terminating event because the author does not defines assisted as that was to be feared, and remind the reader that the core whether someone may ask typhus hidden away in ster- subject of the book is the right to another to end his or her life. ile institutions, rather than die. The right-to-die debate dis- accepted and experienced In an introduction that alone appears in his history of natural within the home and in the makes the book worth picking law, like two books on separate company of one's friends up, Whiting urges the reader to topics that have merged. Instead, and family.5 begin the journey at the end, in the author might have shed light the appendix, reading interviews Whiting then moves on to a on the subject by paralleling with a formerly comatose history of organizations active other national dilemmas-such patient and with the man who in on both sides of the right-to-die as the eighteenth- and nine- 1989 won a Georgia Supreme and euthanasia debate, such as teenth-century national argu- Court battle to be granted the the and the ment over or our present right to turn off his ventilator American Medical Association. continuing discussion about with a switch connected to his The book also covers some -with the current wheelchair.4 The formerly coma- major cases and events in the national debate over the right to tose patient in the other inter- right-to-die movement through- die and euthanasia. view was unable to communi- out the 20th century. Near the book's end, Whiting cate for six months. The two The book then examines laws applies his analysis of natural interviews soften and humanize affecting the right to die in vari- law theory to the contemporary the book, which threatens some- ous states, and profiles different right-to-die debate. He delin- times to become lost in opaque countries' laws having to do eates the proper role of the state theory. with the terminally ill and con- in limiting individual control r~ 82 | Eld e2r,'a s1s Advi over the time, place, and method tive during a journey. The adven- NATURAL RIGHT To DIE: of terminating life. Whiting fears ture starts out slowly, and there is TWENTY-THREE CENTURIES OF that if states do not pass right- time to note the landscape in DEBATE at 10 (Greenwood to-die statutes that would allow detail and contemplate a progres- monitoring of euthanasia and sion of changing scenery. Before Press 2002). long, the scenes speed up, melding , anti-euthanasia 2. Id. at 171. laws will become impotent and into one another and blurring. obsolete, like states' laws against The viewer wishes for a slowing 3. Id. at 155. adultery. of the movement to have more time to contemplate and see detail 4. State v. McAfee, 385 S.E.2d The book is dense and packed and context. with wide-ranging information. 65 (1989). The reader experiences Whiting's 5. WHITING, supra note 1, at 3. world as landscape viewed Endnotes through the window of a locomo- 1. RAYMOND WHITING, A 6. Id. at 5.