Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Winter 2020
ISSN
1066-1271
Publisher
Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law
Language
en-US
Abstract
THE United States Supreme Court's decision in Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health marks its thirtieth anniversary in 2020.' This follows closely after the fiftieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.2 Anniversaries provide an opportunity for reflection and to gain perspective. We can, I suggest, gain deeper insights regarding human life and death by considering these two anniversaries together. Apollo 11 may seem far from Nancy Cruzan-but the discovery of disturbing details about the death of Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, is a productive introduction to the topic of death in a modern American health care institution. Both anniversaries focus on individuals-Nancy Cruzan (the second woman, after Karen Ann Quinlan, to personify the American "right to die") and Neil Armstrong (the first man on the moon). The stories of both Nancy Cruzan and Neil Armstrong are also tied to massive built environments: the American health care nonsystem and its hospitals and complex medical procedures, and the Apollo spacecraft and its rockets and bewildering computers. These technologies have not just changed what we can do, they have changed the way we think about ourselves and our future. This article unfolds in four parts: the death of Neil Armstrong; the death of Nancy Cruzan; Cruzan's progeny and physician-assisted suicide; and our failure to protect the rights of competent hunger-striking prisoners to refuse fluids and nutrition by labeling hunger striking as a suicidal act.
Recommended Citation
George J. Annas,
First Man and Second Woman: Reflections on the Anniversaries of Apollo 11 and Cruzan
,
in
73
SMU Law Review
7
(2020).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/3507
