Categories
Death + the Economy Death Ethics

Some Unclaimed Dead Bodies Buried in Detroit

Detroit finds dignity in death
Poppy Harlow, CNNMoney.com (November 16, 2009)

This article is a few weeks old so it isn’t breaking news. That said, I just noticed the video and watched it. The images of all the unclaimed bodies stacked up in the morgue freezer is a tragedy. I’ve been covering the unclaimed body situation in Detroit (as well as across America) in the Death + the Economy section of Death Ref since the summer of 2009.

It is a telling moment for any nation at a crossroads with itself when a charity is started not to help the living in need but the dead. Of course the living still need to bury the dead (so this isn’t clearly a life vs. death issue) but the formation of the May We Rest in Peace charity to help bury the unclaimed dead bodies in Detroit is a sign of what is to come.

Watch the video. We’re in the middle of a tragedy. Soon enough, it will become a farce.

Categories
Death + the Law Death Ethics Funeral Industry

Ambulance Chasing: Not Just for Lawyers!

Guatemalan Funeral Homes Compete for Corpses
Associated Press (November 29, 2009)

With its excess of murders and dearth of death practitioner regulation, Guatemala is home to “mobile morticians,” chasing ambulances and staking out city morgues to be the first to pounce on mostly low-income, grieving relatives. They’ve even earned a deathly moniker: “calaqueros,” or skullmongers, as seen holding the umbrella below, patiently waiting for a wallet to arrive.

Waiting for the relatives (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

Not only will they track you down in disturbing, often offensive ways, including paying the police to tip them off, skullmongers set up shop wherever possible, including auto body shops: caskets sold up front, corpses disemboweled and embalmed in back among the engine blocks.

This seems to drive costs down (at least?)… but back-alley embalming can’t be far behind. See the AP story (linked at top) for a number of additional photos.

Categories
Death + Art / Architecture Death Ethics

Quodlibetica: The Death Issue

1259005135Haapoja2

Friend of Death Reference Desk, Collier White, has just published the second issue of his collaborative writing/arts/criticism blog, Quodlibetica. The theme? Death. Olly, you know how to get us.

The issue, or “Constellation”, as it’s called, describes the issue thusly:

Death is an ideal subject for art: marginalized, terrifying, and ultimate. In our second constellation, Quodlibetica looks at death in contemporary art and invites writers and artists to talk about death, art, and ethics: Jan Estep questions whether killing animals can ever be justifiable in the name of art, while Collier White visited with Pamela Valfer, an artist who draws and works with dead animals. Patricia Briggs explores death and violence, kept at a distance, in Roxanne Jackson’s work. In our portfolio, Ana Lois-Borzi explores death up close, in a grieving process mediated by art. Christina Schmid focuses on angels and road movies, staples of American folklore, in current and recent shows at Franklin Artworks and form + content, while Collier White’s reviews of Antichrist and The Box dive into pop culture’s lingering obsession with death.

Explore and engage with this well-written addition to the universe of arts criticism.

Image: Terike Haapoja. Photo by Jan Estep.

Categories
Death + the Law Death Ethics

Governor of RI to Gays and Lesbians: You Cannot Claim Your Partner’s Corpse

R.I. governor vetoes ‘domestic partners’ burial bill
Katherine Gregg, The Providence Journal, (November 10, 2009)

When a person dies, his or her body needs to be claimed by the next of kin. If no kin can be found, then that dead body is handled by local authorities. The legal question of who (or whom) qualifies as next of kin is a real dilemma when it involves domestic partners who have been together for numerous years but lack any say over the final disposition of the body. Asserting a legal claim over the control of the corpse is a key issue for same-sex marriage proponents as well as domestic partnership advocates (which would cover heterosexual couples too).

Last week, in Rhode Island, the Governor vetoed a new Domestic Partners bill that would have granted same-sex and opposite-sex partners next of kin status for claiming dead bodies. This Providence Journal article discusses the veto and why Governor Carcieri did what he did.

I promise that in the future, people will look back and read these histories with disbelief.

You need only read this section to understand why:

At a hearing this year on one of the stalled bills to allow same-sex marriage, Mark S. Goldberg told a Senate committee about his months-long battle last fall to persuade state authorities to release to him the body of his partner of 17 years, Ron Hanby, so he could grant Hanby’s wish for cremation — only to have that request rejected because “we were not legally married or blood relatives.”

Goldberg said he tried to show the police and the state medical examiner’s office “our wills, living wills, power of attorney and marriage certificate” from Connecticut, but “no one was willing to see these documents.”

He said he was told the medical examiner’s office was required to conduct a two-week search for next of kin, but the medical examiner’s office waited a full week before placing the required ad in a newspaper. And then when no one responded, he said, they “waited another week” to notify another state agency of an unclaimed body.

Rhode Island State Flag

After four weeks, he said, a Department of Human Services employee “took pity on me and my plight … reviewed our documentation and was able to get all parties concerned to release Ron’s body to me,” but then the cremation society refused to cremate Ron’s body.

“On the same day, I contacted the Massachusetts Cremation Society and they were more than willing to work with me and cremate Ron’s body,” and so, “on November 6, 2008, I was able to finally pick up Ron’s remains and put this tragedy to rest.”

“I felt as if I was treated not as a second-class citizen, but as a noncitizen,” Goldberg told the Senate Judiciary Committee, an hour into the first hearing this year in the 13-year push by gay-rights advocates for the right to marry in Rhode Island, and the pushback from the Roman Catholic Church and other opponents.

Kathy Kushnir, executive directive of the advocacy group Marriage Equality of Rhode Island, called the governor’s veto “unconscionable” when “people are trying to piece their lives together, which is what Rhode Island is requiring them to do without legal recognition,” and then when “faced with a time that could not be more difficult or more painful, not even being able to take care of funeral arrangements for their loved ones.”

Categories
Burial Death Ethics

London: Charming City of Double-decker Busses… and Now Graves

UK Cemetery: Share a Grave with a Stranger?
Jill Lawless, Associated Press (October 28, 2009)

Britain Grave Crisis (AP Photo/Sang Tan)

In efforts to conserve and open up more grave space, the City of London Cemetery, the largest graveyard in the city, has begun reclaiming graves — digging up corpses at least 75 years dead, reburying them deeper, and putting new bodies on top for “double-decker” graves.

While legally sound (well… there’s a loophole involved), it has been causing some turned stomachs… and turned up noses:

Many other European countries regularly reuse old graves after a couple of decades. Britain does not, as a result of Victorian hygiene obsession, piecemeal regulation and national tradition. For many, an Englishman’s tomb, like his home, is his castle.

Categories
Death + Art / Architecture Death + the Law Death Ethics Death Ref Questions

Using Cremains in Memorial Tattoos

Samantha asks the Death Reference Desk:

A couple relatives and I just had my aunt’s ashes put in ink for a memorial tat. My question is since she was so sick, will there be a transfer or will it be okay since she was cremated?

The short answer is: Yes, it’ll be okay. Cremators run between 1400 and 1800 degrees Fahrenheit, which is well beyond hot enough to destroy the pathogens that made the aunt sick. As a result, the cremains will be rendered nonhazardous and useable in tattoo ink.

The long answer is also: Yes, it’s okay, meaning there won’t be a risk of catching her disease. However… internet scavenging and talking with those in the know reveal a lot of confusion about the health risks with using cremains in memorial tattoos: hearsay, misinformation, nondisclosure and a heck of a lot of personal experience — much of it positive — but nothing by way of definitive research or official guidelines from either the tattooing community or health officials.

We get a lot of traffic at DeathRef from people searching for info on memorial tattoos and the use of cremains therein; sparked by Samantha’s question, I decided to do some more digging. A quick note for those unfamiliar with the topic: a memorial tattoo is any tattoo that commemorates a deceased loved one (person or pet), perhaps with his or her image, name, birth and death dates or other personal or religious symbols. That’s it — you don’t need to have cremated ashes mixed into the ink to have a memorial tattoo, in fact, most people don’t. The idea is, however, growing in popularity — if not in practice, then certainly in public awareness about it.

There are three main areas of contention: health, legal/liability issues and ethics. The health concerns are understandable but possibly misdirected — that is, having more to do with cultural taboo than science. While precautions must be taken to ensure everything is sanitary (as with any normal tattooing), the idea that death in all its forms is inherently dirty and to be avoided at all costs — and certainly not deliberately injected into one’s skin — seems to play into the health and safety-oriented objections.

Nonetheless, and most certainly, following cremation, care must be taken to ensure no contamination is introduced to the ashes (from careless handling, airborne germs, etc.). Disagreement exists whether the ashes are “sterilized” from the cremation itself. Many suggest the ashes should be oven baked at home or at a hospital or lab before being mixed in the ink; just as many call foul (me included), as the temperature in the crematorium definitely far exceeds anything you could do at home and likely in other facilities as well.

A UK tattoo artist writing in The Tattoo Forum elaborates on the idea of sterilization, stating one method “involves the further use of heat and the other involves a chemical exposure process” but withholds details due to “the restraints of not allowing unlicensed tattooing.” Fair enough? Perhaps… it is frustrating, though, to be unable to access solid, reliable information. If there’s any chance the cremains have been contaminated (for instance, if they’ve been stored for an extended period in a non-hermetically sealed container), then they should definitely be sterilized in some manner.

The major health-related claim is that the body will reject the ashes as a foreign substance. As such, only a tiny portion should be used, with no significant pieces of bone present — only the finest particles. How tiny is tiny? Sue C. in a Yelp thread says her artist retrieved cremains for her tattoo on the tip of a toothpick.

Also keep in mind that the term “ashes” is misleading; cremains are pulverized bone fragments, sand-like in texture. Some suggest first grinding them further with a (sterilized) mortar and pestle. Either way, they won’t dissolve in the ink but instead remain suspended. In a blog post at Ask BME (Body Modification Ezine), someone comments that she “had a good sized ‘chunk’ put in on purpose so that I could feel him [her dog] in there.” This is probably not recommended — then again, in this case, it seems to have turned out fine.

The cremains will thicken the ink — the more present, the denser the ink, which may give it a slightly raised feel, almost like puffy paint. This would be long-term — different from the initial scabbing, which is common in regular tattooing as the area heals.

As for rejection or other complications such as infections, these happen with normal tattooing, either from personal predisposition (being allergic to or irritated by certain kinds or colors of ink), non-sterile tattooing equipment or environments or poor post-tattooing care. Needless to say, you should always get inked by a professional and follow all instructions for keeping the tattoo, cremains-infused or not, clean as it heals.

Does the addition of cremains increase one’s risk of complication? Well, wouldn’t we all like to know. It would seem reasonable to say yes, as it introduces one more variable, but given all the other variables and protocols to avoid problems, an increased risk could be negligible or even eliminated with proper procedure and care. In other words, someone vigilant about doing everything right may be no more or less likely to have problems than for regular tattoos. Of equal importance and interest, for problems that do arise, it’s likely impossible to know which is the culprit: the cremains or the ink itself, which is just as much a foreign substance.

The practice is legal insofar as it’s not explicitly prohibited — but there are certainly laws about the misuse of human remains. Whether this applies is up for debate. People who get cremains-infused memorial tattoos obviously have no qualms about it, in fact, they see it as the ultimate tribute: a way of having a part of the person with them forever, and in a more serious, permanent way than other death memorializing, such as jewelry that incorporates ashes.

But I have yet to see mention of whether the deceased were aware of and consented to the idea, or discussion of whether this matters. It also has a ways to go as far as social and cultural acceptance (that whole “death is taboo and dirty” thing again). Those with cremains tattoos say they choose wisely who they tell to avoid needlessly disturbing people, and that the tattoo is meant for personal remembrance anyway — not for showing it off, at least the boasting the dead person is actually in the ink! part. Without question, some people are appalled by the practice — including tattoo artists who refuse to do it. Several websites report the difficulty of finding a willing artist.

This reluctance is more than moral objection and routine squeamishness. Though no laws forbid the practice, tattooists often fear liability if something goes wrong, even with waivers cogently signed. Though it’s not specifically illegal, there is legal uncertainty with this uncharted territory. Having a normal tattoo go awry is one thing — everyone involved knows the risks. Having one with cremains bubble with lesions because well, the truth, Your Honor, is there’s a dead person in there… is quite another, regardless of whether the cremains are the reason for complication.

Not only is it difficult to track down an artist who does this, those who do do it don’t seem to advertise it, at least not on the web. This may point to a desire to keep it underground — not for exclusivity, but to avoid public and official scrutiny that may try to regulate or ban it altogether. Is this a real possibility? Hard to say. Tattooing in the United States has spotty regulation, and this seems to me like unwanted attention, however ecstatic and grateful the customers who choose to remember their loved ones in this way.

Needless to say, it’ll be interesting to see how the practice evolves in social, medical and legal contexts — and I apologize in the meantime for my speculative tone and inconclusive take on the topic. As said, information is scarce, especially authoritative, research-based facts, and it may take awhile for this to improve. Growing in popularity or not, it’s still a fringe practice — one that creeps out even the freakiest.

Categories
cremation Death Ethics Eco-Death

Death That Chills

Public Funeral Parlor Recycles Energy from Cremations for Air Conditioners
Mo Yan-chih, Taipei Times (October 7, 2009)

Last August John wrote about crematoriums in England capturing the heat generated during cremations and recycling it to warm the building. The Taipei Second Funeral Parlor in Taiwan is taking a similar approach, this time transforming the heat into electricity and using it to run its newly installed air conditioners.

These kinds of stories can’t help but be quirky (I’m looking at you, cow dung cremations). We’ve got death and its taboos with understandable, squeamish backlash — or as Taipei City Councilor Chuang Ruei-hsiung remarks, “I admire the city government for having such a creative idea, but for family members, it is just creepy to have air conditioning generated from burning bodies.”

Thank you, Mr. Chuang.

But here we also have wonderfully inventive ideas that challenge our cultural norms and promote environmentally sound solutions. …Or is that all a bunch of greenwash hogwash, an eco-spin meant to shut up opposition and all their silly, impractical emotions in favor of efficiency and science? Though the article doesn’t say, I wonder whether recycled cremation heat is cheaper than other sources. While you wouldn’t think offending, much less traumatizing, the already bereaved would be a line crossed lightly, when that line is the bottom line, people are definitely willing to go there.

Personally I find it a little weird, but I’m not opposed to it, either. I just question the real motivation behind these developments — not to mention where such things lead. Need I remind that Soylent Green is people?

Okay, kidding. Sort of. Maybe, hope so. Nonetheless, if any death studies students out there are looking for a thesis topic, this would be an interesting area to explore.

Categories
Death + the Law Death Ethics Suicide

New Assisted Dying Guidelines in England

Director of Public Prosecutions Publishes Interim Policy on Prosecuting Assisted Suicide
The Crown Prosecution Service (September 23, 2009)

Last week in England, the Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer QC, released new guidelines on assisted dying. The goal of these new guidelines is to give family members a clearer understanding of what is acceptable before the law when assisting a loved one to die. As the law currently stands in England and Wales, assisting another person’s suicide is against the law. I discussed what caused these new guidelines here.

Here, then, are the guidelines (which are not laws) which will be used to evaluate whether or not compassion was the guiding principal behind the assistance:

The public interest factors against a prosecution include that:

  • The victim had a clear, settled and informed wish to commit suicide;
  • The victim indicated unequivocally to the suspect that he or she wished to commit suicide;
  • The victim asked personally on his or her own initiative for the assistance of the suspect;
  • The victim had a terminal illness or a severe and incurable physical disability or a severe degenerative physical condition from which there was no possibility of recovery;
  • The suspect was wholly motivated by compassion;
  • The suspect was the spouse, partner or a close relative or a close personal friend of the victim, within the context of a long-term and supportive relationship;
  • The actions of the suspect, although sufficient to come within the definition of the offence, were of only minor assistance or influence, or the assistance which the suspect provided was as a consequence of their usual lawful employment.

It was interesting to read the different press reactions to the guidelines.

Washington Post: Britain To Clarify Policy on Euthanasia
Associated Press: Charges Unlikely for Helping Suicide in England
The Guardian: New assisted suicide guidelines to give ‘clear advice’ to relatives
Lesley Close (in The Guardian): Thank you, Keir Starmer
New York Times: Guidelines in England for Assisted Suicide
BBC News: Assisted suicide law ‘clarified’
Death with Dignity in Oregon
All of these articles point to one central point: these new guidelines are only a step towards changing the entire assisted dying/suicide law in England and Wales. This was only the first step.

The most interesting response to the decision from Timothy Egan at the New York Times. I highly recommend reading his piece The Way We Die Now.

Categories
cremation Death Ethics Eco-Death

Save a Mango Tree: Incinerate Amma in Cow Dung

Cow Dung Cremations Catch On in Bihar
Amarnath Tewary, BBC News (September 27, 2009)

Ongoing floods and a subsequent depletion of mango trees, the traditional cremation fuel for the people of Bihar, India, has led to the use of cow dung in funeral pyres. Readily available and culturally acceptable (coming from a sacred animal, and all), the practice is gaining social acceptance and is even touted as environmentally friendly — no more laying to waste swaths of scarce mango groves only to light them afire.

The cow dung process takes an hour and a half compared to the usual 3–4 hours and is also considerably cheaper. A cow dung cremation will run you $6–$8, compared to the traditional mango tree sendoff at $62–$83. (Average cremation cost in the US: about $1500–$4000.)

Come to think of it, this is so obvious and sensible the fact that cow dung has entered into the cremation equation hardly seems worth mentioning at all. In other words, is this really that shocking and gross? I don’t know — I don’t think so. I do wonder, though, the real extent to which the practice has been embraced — and not just seen as a necessity or an option bright-sided (it’s efficient! it’s green!) out of desperation.

Categories
Death + Art / Architecture Death + Humor Death Ethics

Dead Bodies Having Sex: the Backstory

Cadaver Exhibits Are Part Science, Part Sideshow
Neda Ulaby, National Public Radio (August 10, 2006)

Death Reference Desk technical guru Meg posted an article on the newest planned exhibition by German anatomist and showman, Gunther von Hagens. This would be Gunther von Hagens of Body Worlds fame. The article discusses von Hagens’ plans to exhibit dead bodies posed in sexual positions.

Gunther-von-Hagens01

There is a fascinating backstory to this corpse-a-palooza sex show and it all begins in 2006….

In August of that year, NPR featured a report by Neda Ulaby on Gunther von Hagens. You can listen to that interview by clicking on the link at the top of the page. On the whole, the report is about the Body Worlds phenomena sweeping America during that summer.

Then, as if by MAGIC, intrepid reporter Neda Ulaby drops this dead body bomb:

Recently, [Gunther von Hagens] sent a questionnaire to 6,500 people who he says have agreed to donate their bodies to him after death. They were asked a number of provocative questions. For example, would they consent to their body parts being mixed with an animal’s, to create a mythological creature? Would they agree to be “transformed into an act of love with a woman or a man?” Von Hagens says that on the sex question, the majority of men liked the idea, while the women did not.

Talk about burying the lead…or burying something. Wowza: that double entendre works on a number of levels.

Plastinated Bodies
But it is all true. Gunther von Hagens plans on fusing dead animals and dead humans together (because, of course, humans aren’t animals….) to create Mythological Creatures. Or, as one former student once proclaimed: “You mean like centaurs and stuff.” Yes yes. I do mean centaurs and stuff.

But the magic doesn’t stop there. Oh no. Von Hagens was clearly making plans to pose dead bodies in sexual positions by at least 2006 (if not earlier). Well, actually, von Hagens says “…transformed into an act of love…” and when you listen to the NPR report, it’s really creepy sounding.

Magical Centaur

Thus began my own personal obsession with tracking every new exhibition by von Hagens to see when he would finally, finally show dead bodies having sex. It seemed fairly obvious that von Hagens would create this exhibition since I GUARANTEE that it (meaning dead bodies doing it) will make MORE MONEY than any of von Hagens other shows. And that is saying a lot, since Body Worlds recorded its 28th million visitor in July 2009. The mythological creatures will most certainly appear at some point but only after a small mint is made with the corpse sex.

And so it has all come to pass. On May 7, 2009, Gunther von Hagens opened a new Body Worlds exhibition in Berlin, Germany (the Berlin link is gone so I am using a Zurich, Switzerland link). In one section of the exhibition, entitled Cycle of Life, von Hagens placed two different pairs of bodies having sex on display. In a statement released by von Hagens, he explains that the exhibit “offers a deep understanding of the human body, the biology of reproduction, and the nature of sexuality.”

He is also making it clear on the Body Worlds website that he wants to bring the copulating corpses to London. I know. The Brits will beat down the door to see it. Here is the full “look out London, here we come” pitch by von Hagens.

At least at the end he wished everyone best wishes.

Sadly, the London Body Worlds exhibition closed at the end of August. The last time I checked, von Hagens never did move the dead bodies having sex to the O2 bubble. But rest assured, I will keep track of this situation for one and all.

And what would this post on dead bodies having sex be WITHOUT at least a short video clip from YouTube. This gem is entitled Copulating Corpses from from Von Hagen[s] Exhibition and it features an awesome song by the band Evanesence.

Enjoy…the darkness…

Categories
Death + the Law Death Ethics Suicide

The Right to Die Free in Montana

Montana Court to Rule on Assisted Suicide Case
Kirk Johnson, New York Times (September 01, 2009)

Since July I have been posting stories on Right-to-Die cases in England. Those posts involved Edward and Joan Downes (who traveled together to the Dignitas Clinic in Switzerland to die) and Debbie Purdy who successfully fought a campaign to have England’s assisted suicide law changed.

Now it is America’s turn and in the great state of Montana no less. State motto: Oro y Plata…which means Gold and Silver in Spanish. I know.

I will let the Billings Gazette take the lead, with the August 29, 2009 article, State Appealing District Court Judge’s Ruling Favoring Assisted Suicide:

Robert Baxter, a 76-year-old former truck driver from Billings, spent his last months fighting for the right to hasten his own death.

Robert Baxter

Baxter was the Montana face and only named terminally ill patient in a legal case that sought to legalize physician-assisted suicide; he wanted doctors to prescribe him medication that would bring about his death and end his struggle with chronic leukemia.

Baxter died Dec. 5, 2008, the same day that Helena District Judge Dorothy McCarter ruled that the Montana Constitution protected the right of terminal patients like him to obtain lethal prescriptions from physicians.

This is an interesting case to watch because it involves the Montana State Supreme Court ruling on whether or not assisted suicide is legal. The other two American states with assisted dying laws, Oregon and Washington, both passed those laws by popular vote.

As always, I will keep my eyes on this case.

Categories
Death + the Economy Death + the Law Death Ethics Suicide

America and End of Life Care: Death, Dying, and Mortality

At the End, Offering Not a Cure but Comfort
Anemona Hartocollis, New York Times (August 19, 2009)

I started and re-started this post on American Health Care reform several times. To watch America’s current Health Care debate (such as it is…) makes me all the happier that I now live in the UK and am covered by the National Health Service. I have no problems with the NHS and I am glad that it exists.

Do Not Resuscitate Tattoo

One part of the NHS that impresses me most is its National End of Life Care Programme. The EOLC Programme’s mission statement provides a succinct mandate:

OUR AIM: To improve the quality of care at the end of life for all patients and enable more patients to live and die in the place of their choice.

What I think is fundamentally important about this NHS program is that it acknowledges the obvious: people die. Indeed, the program was explicitly created to embrace death so that the dying process is made as comfortable as possible for UK residents.

Do No Resuscitate

Herein lies one of the key reasons that I think the American Health Care reform debate is failing: Serious discussions about death, dying, and mortality have been jettisoned. What America needs more than ever, right now, is a National Conversation about dying because until that occurs, health care reform will continue to ignore that one part of human biology that we all share: Death.

And yet, paradoxically, it would seem that this kind of conversation is going on all the time.

The New York Times article at the top offers a lengthy and important discussion on End of Life Care in American hospitals. And NYTimes Health columnist Jane Brody offered this recent piece: End-of-Life Issues Need to Be Addressed.

President Obama made it clear in May that he was interested in a National Conversation about End of Life Care in a lengthy New York Times Magazine interview about the economy.

It is a long(ish) interview, so if you click here you can skip to the bit on Obama’s Grandmother and how her death informed his own thinking about End of Life decisions.

Do Not Resuscitate Bracelet

The problem, of course, is that people rarely talk to their family members about death. To bring home this point, the August 7, 2005 New York Times Magazine featured this article: Will We Ever Arrive at the Good Death?

Here is the key quote from that article:

As J. Donald Schumacher, president of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, said last April to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, “Americans are more likely to talk to their children about safe sex and drugs than to their terminally ill parents about choices in care as they near life’s final stages.”

Let me be clear that I think that President Obama is delving into an extremely urgent topic but, ironically, he is not the first modern American president to discuss end of life decision making. Oh no. Not by a long shot.

Some of the first presidential statements on death involved Ronald Reagan. In the early 1980’s, President Reagan received a series of reports on death and dying from some totally forgotten (but important) bioethics commissions:

  • Defining Death: Medical, Legal and Ethical Issues in the Determination of Death (July 9, 1981)
  • Deciding to Forego Life-Sustaining Treatment: Ethical, Medical, and Legal Issues in Treatment Decisions (March 21, 1983)
  • So, in a way, President Obama is attempting to carry out a project begun by President Reagan and is actually acting very Reaganesque. But I digress…

    For me, the key reason President Obama has seen his health care debate derailed is that he dared to embrace death. Or, at least, to suggest that end of life care is something that needs to be discussed (on the local and national level) since individuals need to be clear in their own heads about how they want to die.

    And since President Obama is involving himself in this debate, it means that the head of the nation is suddenly speaking out about death and dying. As a result, Obama is acknowledging a much more profound dilemma for modern America: the nation-state (as in America) usually ignores death at all costs.

    At a certain point, the nation can do absolutely nothing about death and instead it focuses on mortality. Death is utterly ignored by the nation because it represents that one, final act that an individual can choose and that beyond a certain point-in-time no life will return. President Obama isn’t anywhere near making statements about who lives and who dies. But he is making it clear that death is inevitable. (I am unfairly paraphrasing Michel Foucault’s comments from his Society Must Be Defended lectures, p. 248).

    That alone, I think, is causing some of the biggest problems.

    Do Not Resuscitate Logo

    All of this is to say, that American health care reform begins and ends with death. And until those discussions occur, America will continue with its current system.

    If you’re interested in making sure that your own end of life requests are followed, then use this information offered by Jane Brody of the New York Times.

    To help people make sound health care decisions and get the care they would want for themselves or their family members as life draws to a close, the National Institute on Aging has produced a comprehensive 68-page booklet, “End-of-Life: Helping With Comfort and Care.” Individual free copies can be obtained through the institute’s Web site, www.nia.nih.gov, or by calling 800-222-2225.