Wishbones and Dry Bones

ISN'T IT THRILLING! For a mere twenty thousand dollars, you can now choose an alternative to both cremation and burial. With any luck, you may even be choosing an alternative to death itself. The Cryonics Society of New York is peddling a unique form of insurance against terminal disease: in the event of death caused by fatal illness, your body can be frozen, suspended in a capsule of liquid nitrogen and buried in the hope (no matter how far-fetched) that some day you can be thawed back to life by some future "miracle of science." As an added bonus you will receive "postsuspension counseling (for survivors presumably) on future developments."

One brochure reads:

Cryonic suspension is for those unique individuals who enjoy living and believe in life. It is for those who refuse to give up the fight for survival, and who will do everything within their powers to hold off the forces of death. Cryonic suspension is for those who want to be a part of the future... who want to contribute and enjoy the wonders of the fantastic world of tomorrow. Cryonic suspension is for you!

All very tantalizing--or is it? Such a ridiculous attempt to flee, rather than confront, the unequivocal fact of death is merely one more manifestation, claims David Hendin, of this single remaining taboo; a taboo being bombarded, however, by an army of books, articles, monographs and courses on the subject. Hendin calls his contribution "A realistic look at the medical and emotional aspects of death." It is an unpretentious, informative and honestly sensitive confrontation with some eyebrow-raising facts.

As a medical journalist, Hendin has tried to resolve "the problem of the length of time necessary to disseminate, in a useful form, new information not only to the public, but to scientists." In Death As A Fact of Life he re-examines in the light of recent discoveries such subjects as treatment of the dying, fear, grief, transplants and the changing criteria of death. By bringing new information within reach of the public, he hopes to bring his readers to a clearer understanding of this one universal human experience, apart from birth.

"Our embarrassment at the individual face of death," says Dr. Herman Feifel, professor of Psychiatry at the University of Southern California, "forces the seriously ill and dying person to live alone on the brink of an abyss with no one to understand him." It is ironic that the very truths from which the patient is being "protected" by family and doctors are the same truths with which he is being forced to live--alone. Hendin argues that our inability, or unwillingness, to cope with death results, in part, from a lack of close contact with it at an early age. "Current longevity, coupled with increased family mobility, has severely limited man's perception of death. Most Americans, too, expect to die away from home, and all but one third will die in hospitals or old age homes. Meanwhile, their grandchildren can expect to grow to maturity without ever witnessing the death of a loved one."

Now that resuscitative and supportive mechanisms (heart-lung machines, pacemakers, electric shock treatment) are capable in certain cases of indefinitely preserving breathing and heartbeat, doctors are being forced to turn to the brain for critical signs of death. But even more than recent technical interventions, Hendin claims, it was the surgical revolution--reaching its peak with the first heart transplants of the late sixties--that did the most to "blur the shadowy line between the quick and the dead." Until a modern, ethical, legal, medical and religious definition of the death concept is established, doctors will be unable to make vital decisions concerning treatment, preservation of organs, and "when to turn off the machines."

MR. W.N. HUBBARD, former dean of the University of Michigan Medical School, has recognized the ridiculous results of technological processes capable of prolonging life past usefulness: "To sacrifice human dignity at the time of death or to make the process of dying a burden upon the living is not in the highest tradition of medicine, nor is it justified in the humanist tradition." Basically, this is the argument employed by Marya Mannes in her case for euthanasia. Last Rights is, however, a slick, documentary-like series of sketches, each one muttering, never crying out, in favor of euthanasia. She recalls, in lurid detail, visits to old-age homes and intensive care units; she interviews doctors, nurses, families and the dying themselves; she dutifully records the legal history of mercy killing. Her sketches, unfortunately, lose their authenticity in the pervasive stench of soap opera. Although informative and well-documented, the book ultimately creates little impression, brings no enlightenment.

In an earlier novel, Message From A Stranger, Mannes describes, through the eyes of a dead woman, the final stage of death:

A great peace settled over me. I had not realized until this moment how heavy had been the burden of identity.

Now, in Last Rights, she refers to that passage:

I know now that the burden of lost identity, as in the trapped and helpless and dying, is even worse.

That is why I wrote this book. To try to help free them, to transcend death.

Mannes fails to fulfil, however, such noble aspirations; transcendence demands more than an old argument buttressed by a string of maudlin portraits.

The principal argument for "the good death" is that so many suffer unnecessarily through lack of provision for complete care of the dying. In that case, the fact that all this discussion of euthanasia has even been made necessary seems a sad indictment of a "civilized society."