Assisted Suicide, the Supreme Court, and the Constitutive Function of the Law

The reasonings behind popular culture responses to the controversy over a terminally ill patient's right to die are examined. It is contended that physician-assisted suicide functions as a mise-en-scene for evaluation of the social transformation of health care; specifically, the economic, cultural, & structural elements of medical care have been transformed. Five popular cultural responses are identified: (1) individuals know what is right & why; (2) an individual's end-of-life care presents a complicated dilemma easily defended by both opposing groups; (3) terminally ill patients require psychological care rather than medical attention; (4) the foreign press has an aversion to the topic; & (5) the foundations of Western morality have been transformed by postmodernity. Unlike abortion, which has witnessed the mass mobilization of US society, the debate over physician-assisted suicide will most likely be characterized by the presence of competing alternatives that are merely pieces of more encompassing metacultural responses to the contemporary world. J. W. Parker