A history of the euthanasia movement in the US from the beginning
of the 20th century to the present day, tracing the tangle of
philosophical, cultural, social, religious, and political forces
that have shaped it. Dowbiggin (History/Univ. of Prince Edward
Island) finds the impetus for America's euthanasia movement in
Social Darwinism and the Progressive movement, which helped to
undermine traditional religious beliefs. Although a Chicago
surgeon's refusal to operate on a badly deformed baby brought
national press coverage to the subject of euthanasia in 1915, it
was not until 1938 that the Euthanasia Society of America (ESA) was
founded and began its campaign to legalize mercy killing.
Dowbiggin, who had access to the ESA's archives, documents the long
years of cultural war between the ESA, imbued with Unitarianism and
Humanism, and the Roman Catholic church. Along the way, he explores
the links between euthanasia and other social causes, such as birth
control and abortion rights. From interviews with many of the
movement's leaders, Dowbiggin illuminates the tensions within the
ESA as interest shifted from the legalization of mercy killing to
the right to refuse unwanted medical treatment and as a West Coast
grassroots activism challenged the leadership of a New York
social-reformist elite. He shows how the euthanasia movement was
affected by the rise of the women's movement, by the dramatic
increase in AIDS deaths, by media coverage of the troubling Karen
Ann Quinlan and Nancy Cruzan cases, and by the problematic public
actions of Dr. Kevorkian. He follows the adoption of living will
laws across the nation and the contentious fight over legalization
of assisted suicide as it unfolded in Oregon, Michigan, and Maine.
It's clear from his account that public debate over the right to
die is likely to continue for years to come, and the outcome is by
no means certain. Well-researched and evenhanded: a valuable
contribution to the literature. (Kirkus Reviews)
How did today's debate over euthanasia (taken from the Greek word for 'good death') become so divisive in American society? In
A Merciful End Ian Dowbiggin tells, for the first time, the dramatic story of those reformers who struggled throughout the twentieth century to change the nation's attitudes towards mercy killing and assisted suicide.l Having had access to confidential records in the United States, England and Canada, and having interviewed leading figures in the American euthanasia movement, he reveals that euthanasia has been a contentious issue in America for over a century, long before Jack Kevorkian began helping patients to die. Over the course of the twentieth century, a group of public-spirited men and women tried to break down ancient Judeo-Christian prohibitions against mercy killing, overturn state laws criminalizing assisted suicide, and convince the US Supreme Court that there is a right to die in the Constitution. In their eagerness to succeed, these euthanasia advocates have often sanctioned public policies that blur the fine line between choice and duty, freedom and coercion, the rights of the individual and the needs of society. By the dawn of the twenty-first century, they had won some small victories, and the debate over whose lives were worth living still raged, but Dowbiggin argues that more and more Americans seemed to prefer better end-of-life care to sweeping changes in laws about euthanasia. America's euthanasia movement entered the twenty-first century ready and willing to fight new wars but facing an uphill battle against sentiments such as these.
Original, wide-ranging in scope, but sensitive to the personal dimensions of euthanasia, A Merciful End is an illuminating and cautionary account of the tension between motives and methods within twentieth century social reform. It provides a refreshingly new perspective on an old debate.
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