Death, dying and domination

Michigan Law Review

Volumn 106, Issue 8, 2008, Pages 1641-1667

  Spindelman, Marc ^a,b  

^a OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN LAW SCHOOL   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

BIOETHICS; DEATH; FREEDOM; HUMAN; LEGAL ASPECT; PERSONAL AUTONOMY; PERSUASIVE COMMUNICATION; POLITICS; REVIEW; RIGHT TO DIE; UNITED STATES;

BIOETHICS; COERCION; DEATH; FREEDOM; HUMANS; PERSONAL AUTONOMY; POLITICS; RIGHT TO DIE; UNITED STATES;

EID: 46449092995     PISSN: 00262234     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (100)

1. The "right to die" has various meanings. I use the term, in a broad sense - to include "active" and "passive" euthanasia in their various forms - unless otherwise clear from context.
2. The most high-profile illustration of these tendencies may be the "Philosophers' Brief" filed in Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702 (1997).
3. Brief for Ronald Dworkin et al. as Amici Curiae in Support of Respondents, Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702 (Nos. 95-1858, 96-110).
4. THOMAS HOBBES, LEVIATHAN 161 (CB Macpherson ed., Penguin Books 1981) (1651) (updated language added).
5. See Bouvia v. Superior Court, 225 Cal. Rptr. 297 (Ct. App. 1986).
6. Id. at 299.
7. Id. at 300.
8. Id.
9. Id.
10. Id.
11. Id.
12. Id. at 306.
13. Id at 304-05.
14. No prominent set of safeguards - proposed, or enacted, including Oregon's - is truly designed to deal with private structural domination.
15. See, e.g., John D. Arras, Physician-Assisted Suicide: A Tragic View, 13 J. CONTEMP. HEALTH L. & POL'Y 361, 386 (1997);
16. John D. Arras, The Right to Die on the Slippery Slope, 8 Soc. THEORY & PRAC. 285, 302-19 (1982).
17. See, e.g., Morris R. Cohen, Property and Sovereignty, 13 CORNELL L.Q. 8, 11 (1927).
18. My critique here is not an external argument against the right to die, or more specifically, assisted suicide. Previously, it was. See, e.g., Marc Spindelman, Legislating Privilege, 30 J.L. MED. & ETHICS 24 (2002).
19. DeShaney v. Winnebago County Dep't of Soc. Servs., 812 F.2d 298, 301 (7th. Cir. 1987), aff'd, 489 U.S. 189 (1989).
20. DeShaney v. Winnebago County Dep't of Soc. Servs., 489 U.S. 189, 195 (1989).
21. This is a rendering of the "adjudicated Constitution," not of the Constitution itself. See Robin West, Progressive and Conservative Constitutionalism, 88 MICH. L. REV. 641, 716 (1990).
22. DeShaney, 489 U.S. at 195-97 (citations omitted).
23. Bowers v. DeVito, 686 F.2d 616, 618 (7th Cir. 1982)
24. quoted and discussed in Robin West, Unenumerated Duties, 9 U. PA. J. CONST. L. 221, 230 (2006).
25. Justifications have variously been dropped and tethered to constitutional history, text, structure, institutional practice, raw institutional power, judicial ideology, and character. Sources on each count are legion.
26. Fully consistent is DeShaney's embrace of the view that the Constitution does not compel the State to address class domination. See DeShaney, 489 U.S. at 196 (citing Harris v. McRae, 448 U.S. 297, 317-18 (1980)). The same can be said of DeShaney's position on patriarchal violence, hence sex-based violence, more generally: The State is not constitutionally obligated to oppose it. Measured, by DeShaney itself, the State has no responsibility to notice that patriarchy or the sex-based hierarchy of which it is a part exists. It recognizes neither.
27. See West, supra note 21, at 230.
28. 545 U.S. 748, 751-54 (2005).
29. Bowers, 686.F.2d at 618.
30. See Lee v. Oregon, 891 F. Supp. 1429 (D. Or. 1995), vacated, 107 F.3d 1382 (9th Cir. 1997) (Equal Protection Ruling).
31. Judge Hogan did not immediately reject the substantive due process claim raised in the case. See Lee v. Oregon, 869 F. Supp. 1491 (D. Or. 1994) (.Preliminary Injunction Decision).
32. See Lee, 891 F. Supp. 1429;
33. see also Defendants' Memorandum in Support of Motion for Summary Judgment at 34-35, 41-43
34. Lee, 891 F. Supp. 1429 (No. 94-6467-HO).
35. Opening Brief of Intervenors Levin, M.D, and Shuck at 12, Lee v. Oregon, 107 F.3d 1382 (9th Cir. 1997) (Nos. 95-35804, 95-35805, 95-35854, 95-35948 and 95-35949). The same argument was made before the trial court. See, e.g., Brief in Support of Plaintiffs' Motion for Preliminary Injunction at 18, 65, 74, 93, Lee, 869 F. Supp. 1491 (No. 94-6467-HO);
36. First Amended Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief at 30, Lee, 869 F. Supp. 1491 (No. 94-6467-HO);.
37. Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief at 13-14, 16, Lee, 869 F. Supp. 1491 (No. 94-6467-HO).
38. 521 U.S. 702 (1997).
39. Judge Hogan's decision that Oregon's law violated the Equal Protection Clause, because it irrationally underprotected the lives of the terminally ill, leaving them uniquely susceptible to deaths produced by the forces of private domination, is not flatly inconsistent with DeShaney. See DeShaney v. Winnebago County Dep't of Soc. Servs., 489 U.S. 189, 197 n.3 (1989).
40. But Judge Hogan's decision does rub deeply against DeShaney's grain. Similarly, it flouts McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U.S. 279 (1987), not to applaud McCleskey's decision-principle.
41. David L. Bazelon, Civil Liberties - Protecting Old Values in the New Century, 51 N.Y.U. L. REV. 505, 513 (1976).
42. MICHAEL WALZER, SPHERES OF JUSTICE: A DEFENSE OF PLURALISM AND EQUALITY (1983).
43. Walzer recognizes "medical care" as a "sphere of justice." Id. at 19;
44. see also id. at 86-91. He acknowledges "boundary" problems with his theory.
45. Id. at 21.
46. See, e.g., Patricia A. King & Leslie E. Wolf, Empowering and Protecting Patients: Lessons for Physician-Assisted Suicide from the African-American Experience, 82 MINN. L. REV. 101.5 (1998).
47. But see, e.g., THE N.Y. STATE TASK FORCE ON LIFE AND THE LAW, WHEN DEATH IS SOUGHT: ASSISTED SUICIDE AND EUTHANASIA IN THE MEDICAL CONTEXT 125 (1994).
48. BENJAMIN N. CARDOZO, The Methods of History Tradition and Sociology, in THE NATURE OF THE JUDICIAL PROCESS: THE STORRS LECTURES DELIVERED AT YALE UNIVERSITY 51, 51 (1921).
49. See, e.g., Constitution of the World Health Organization, in BASIC DOCUMENTS 1 (46th ed. 2006).
50. See, e.g., Robin West, Katrina, the Constitution, and the Legal Question Doctrine, 81 CHI.-KENT L. REV. 1127, 1134-46 (2006).
51. 334 U.S. 1 (1948).
52. The prominent sources variously cited as causes include ideology, morality, virtue, convention, politics, psychology, and institutional constraints (hence prudence).
53. The imperative to state a caveat here has grown as the State's constitutional authority to address private domination has become markedly variegated on multiple doctrinal grounds, including those that deny the federal legislature even the permission to choose to address private domination.
54. Cf. Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld, Fundamental Legal Conceptions as Applied in Judicial Reasoning, 26 YALE L.J. 710, 710 (1917).
55. 521 U.S. 702 (1997).
56. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. at 731-32.
57. Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health, 497 U.S. 261, 281 (1990), affirms the point at least with respect to strictly private, interpersonal domination.
58. See infra text accompanying notes 61-63.
59. 1 MICHEL FOUCAULT, THE HISTORY OF SEXUALITY: AN INTRODUCTION 140-45 (Robert Hurley trans.,Vintage Books 1990) (1976).
60. See Transcript of Oral Argument at 9, Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702 (No. 96-110)
61. reprinted in 253 LANDMARK BRIEFS AND ARGUMENTS OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES: CONSTITUTIONAL LAW 894 (Gerald Gunther et al. eds., 1998);
62. see also Transcript of Oral Argument at 8-9, Vacco v. Quill, 521. U.S. 793 (1997) (No. 95-1858)
63. reprinted in 255 LANDMARK BRIEFS AND ARGUMENTS OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES: CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, supra, pt. 2, at 876-77.
64. 521 U.S. 793 (1997).
65. See, e.g., ROBERT NOZICK, ANARCHY, STATE, AND UTOPIA 272 (1974).
66. Lawrence Sager finesses these moments of divergence in LAWRENCE G. SAGER, JUSTICE IN PLAINCLOTHES: A THEORY OF AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONAL PRACTICE (2004).
67. His brief discussion of physician-assisted suicide, for instance, id. at 208-211, avers that its legal status "is dominated by practical concerns,"
68. id. at 208. No analysis of them - including, for instance, how freedom from public domination and freedom from private domination might conflict with one another in the context of assisted suicide, or the right to die, more generally, nor how they actually do - follows.
69. For a related example, with detailed illustrations, see Marc Spindelman, Surviving Lawrence v. Texas, 1.02 MICH. L. REV. 1615, 1648-64 (2004).
70. Special rules may exist for those who lack any capacity for autonomy.
71. The term is from DUNCAN KENNEDY, SEXY DRESSING ETC. 137 (1993).
72. Compassion in Dying v. Washington, 79 F.3d 790 (9th Cir. 1996) (en banc), rev'd sub nom. Washington v. Glucksberg, 521. U.S. 702 (1997).
73. See id. at 794, 797 & n.8, 832.
74. Arguably, a rare exception appears in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 887-98 (1992) (joint opinion).
75. The usual approach also appears in Casey. See id. at 885-87.
76. Exceptions do exist. See, e.g., Bd. of Dirs. of Rotary Int'l v. Rotary Club of Duarte, 481 U.S. 537, 549 (1987).
77. Gonzalez v. Carhart, 127 S. Ct. 1610 (2007), misses the difference.
78. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. at 731-32.
79. David Orentlicher, The Supreme Court and Terminal Sedation: Rejecting Assisted Suicide, Embracing Euthanasia, 24 HASTINGS CONST. L.Q. 947, 955-56 (1997).
80. To speak of the right to terminal sedation is but one way to specify the Glucksberg Court's decision to constitutionalize the doctrine of double effect. See Yale Kamisar, On the Meaning and Impact of the Physician-Assisted Suicide Cases, 82 MINN. L. REV. 895, 904-05 (1998).
81. Even if that doctrine should turn out not to entail a right to terminal sedation as such, see Norman L. Cantor, Twenty-Five Years After Quinlan: A Review of the Jurisprudence of Death and Dying, 29 J.L. MED. & ETHICS 182, 187 (2001), or a more general right to pain relief that itself includes a right to terminal sedation, or at least a right to some forms of terminal sedation, the point I am making remains.
82. 497 U.S. 261 (1990).
83. Technically, Chief Justice Rehnquist's opinion in Cruzan only assumed the existence of this right. Still, counting heads, including Justice O'Connor's, it is fair to say "announced." Cruzan, 497 U.S. at 287-89 (O'Connor, J., concurring).
84. This is not to say Cruzan entirely missed strictly interpersonal private domination. Id. at 281 (majority opinion).
85. Or, presumably, any other form of it. See Compassion in Dying v. Washington, 79 F.3d 790, 814-16, 832 (9th Cir. 1996) (en banc), rev'd sub nom. Washington v. Glucksberg, 521. U.S. 702 (1997).
86. See Compassion in Dying v. Washington, 49 F.3d 586, 592-93 (9th Cir. 1995), rev'd en banc, 79 F.3d 790 (9th Cir. 1996), rev'd sub nom. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702.
87. Compassion in Dying, 79 F.3d at 825.
88. Claims to the contrary notwithstanding, see, e.g., Glucksberg, 521. U.S. at 731-73, Glucksberg affirms the logic of this passage.
89. See supra text accompanying notes 57-61. So do countless other "right to die" decisions.
90. The new classics include LARRY D. KRAMER, THE PEOPLE THEMSELVES: POPULAR CONSTITUTIONALISM, AND JUDICIAL REVIEW (2004)
91. SAGER, supra note 49
92. MARK TUSHNET, TAKING THE CONSTITUTION AWAY FROM THE COURTS (2000)
93. and ROBIN WEST, PROGRESSIVE CONSTITUTIONALISM: RECONSTRUCTING THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT (1994).
94. See, e.g., West, supra note 38, at 1163-72.
95. See, e.g., Carl E. Schneider, After Autonomy, 41 WAKE FOREST L. REV. 411 (2006).
96. These are the Nazi concentration camp "experiments," and domestically, the Tuskegee syphilis "experiments."
97. The genealogy of this "dissident" strain of liberal bioethics has not been written. Contemporaneously, it includes certain feminist and critical race theory work on biomedicine and its ethics. Dorothy Roberts's scholarship, particularly on race, sex, and class in the context of reproduction, for example, Dorothy E. Roberts, Privitization and Punishment in the New Age of Reprogenetics, 54 EMORY L.J. 1343 (2005), is exemplary.
98. See also id. at 1343 n.2 (collecting sources).
99. Cf. JANET HALLEY, SPLIT DECISIONS: HOW AND WHY TO TAKE A BREAK FROM FEMINISM (2006). This is not to endorse the "break" Halley urges.
100. I thus join Carl Schneider in the conclusion that courts should not make "biomedical policy . . . through constitutional, adjudication," though for reasons different than his. Carl E. Schneider, Making Biomedical Policy through Constitutional Adjudication: The Example of Physician-Assisted Suicide, in LAW AT THE END OF LIFE: THE SUPREME COURT AND ASSISTED SUICIDE 164, 164 (Carl E. Schneider ed., 2000) (emphasis added).