A Hospice Setting for Humane Neonatal Death

Abstract

"To be told the meaning of your life by others, in terms which are not yours," sociologist Peter Marris has pointed out,1 "implies that your existence does not matter to them except as it is reflected in their own." This kind of life-defining authoritarianism has, in the past, been justified in the name of morality—and the dictatorial behavior of moral leaders has not abated in the present day. For example, a melodrama has recently been enacted in Danville, IL: parents and personal physician were indicted for attempted murder by starvation of malformed conjoined twins (Associated Press: Parents of Siamese twins charged. June 12, 1981).