Category: Death + the Law

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Death + the Law Death Ethics

Burying Dead Soldiers and Judging Free Speech

High Court: Justices to Consider ‘Funeral Protests’ in Free-Speech Case
Robert Barnes, Washington Post (May 31, 2010)

The Washington Post ran a really interesting article today on an upcoming US Supreme Court case involving freedom of speech and protests at funerals for dead soldiers. I expect that the story ran today because it is, afterall, Memorial Day and a good time to reflect on freedoms, liberties, and the people who died while in the US military. The Supreme Court is being asked to decide whether or not the Westboro Baptist Church, run by Fred Phelps, has a right to protest near soldiers’ funerals. What makes this case particularly complex is that the WBC protesters (which are never more than a handful) hold signs proclaiming their thanks for dead soldiers since God is punishing America for condoning homosexuality.

For years, the WBC has protested at all kinds of funerals under the “God Hates Fags” banner but it has really only been the soldiers’ funerals which drew the most ire. We’ve been covering this particular legal case on Death Ref and you can read those posts here: Father of Dead Soldier Ordered to Pay Up and “Thank God for Dead Soldiers”.

The case’s most provocative legal question is this: Will a majority of the US Supreme Court rule in favor of the Westboro Baptist Church, even though its tactics are almost universally despised? What are the limits of free speech in this situation? Can Albert Snyder (the father of dead Marine Matthew Snyder) sue the Westboro Baptist Church in order to stop its protest activities without violating the first Amendment to the US Constitution?

Robert Barnes, the reporter at the Washington Post explains:

…First Amendment specialists think Albert Snyder has a difficult case to prove to a court that has been particularly outspoken on government attempts to regulate speech and has accepted two privacy cases for the term that begins in the fall.

 

George Washington University law professor Daniel J. Solove, the author of “Understanding Privacy,” said he finds it “perplexing” that the justices took the case. The message of Phelps and his followers is “stupid and obnoxious,” Solove said, but seems to fit squarely into the kind of unpopular speech that the Constitution protects.

 

The church maintains that its protests are not aimed at the dead — there was no particular reason to select Matthew Snyder’s funeral for picketing — but at the actions of the living.

 

A sampling of the signs carried at Snyder’s 2006 funeral at St. John’s Catholic Church in Westminster, Md., included “God Hates the USA/Thank God for 9/11,” “Semper Fi Fags,” “Thank God for Dead Soldiers” and “Priests Rape Boys.” The demonstrators abided by the law and stayed away from the funeral itself.

 

Albert Snyder sued Phelps, and Snyder argued at trial that the demonstration invaded his privacy, caused emotional distress and violated his rights to free exercise of religion and peaceful assembly. He said a treatise posted on the church’s Web site specifically mentioned Matthew and his family.

 

A jury awarded Snyder more than $10 million, which was cut in half by the judge and then overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Richmond. A three-judge panel said that although Phelps’s rhetoric was offensive, it was protected as speech concerning issues in the national debate.

The politics of this case are also compelling. A number of both conservative and liberal elected officials have joined together in support of the military families while simultaneously passing laws in about 40 US states banning (or severely curtailing) protests by the WBC. On the one hand, this is not particularly shocking. On the other hand, social conservatives do not necessarily disagree with the WBC’s anti-gay rhetoric and liberals have historically made the case for unpopular, protest speech.

And no matter where the WBC protests, the counter protests are usually much larger. Indeed, a Veterans motorcycle group called the Patriot Guard Riders attends soldiers’ funerals (but only if invited by the family) so that the next of kin is insulated from the protests. In the middle of all this is a funeral director trying to negotiate this moment in American cultural politics but then that’s nothing new.

So the questions remains open: What are the limits of free speech in this situation?

I think that it is also inevitable that this case will end up in the election politics of the autumn, which is too bad because the questions being raised are really important and not easily decided.

Sadly, it is the soldiers’ families who get caught up in the middle of this and at the end of the day I have a feeling that the impact on next of kin at the funerals will carry a great of weight with the Supreme Court.

As the Washington Post puts it:

Snyder said he was only vaguely aware of the protests at military funerals until the protest came to him. He still gets emotional recalling that day.

“All we wanted was a private funeral for my son,” he said. “They turned it into a three-ring circus.”

Categories
Death + the Law Death Ethics

Minnesota’s Extra End-of-Life Legal Hoops for Same-Sex Partners

Editorial: ‘Final Wishes’ Veto is Cold, Calculating
At time of death, we can be kinder to same-sex couples.
Star Tribune (May 24, 2010)

Last week, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty vetoed a bill that would have given same-sex partners in long term relationships the legal right to the other partner’s dead body for funeral arrangements and final disposition of the remains. I wrote about the veto on Death Ref (Governor of MN to Gays and Lesbians: You Cannot Claim Your Partner’s Corpse) and discussed how Pawlenty’s decision was very similar to a veto issued by the Governor of Rhode Island.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune has now weighed in on the veto with an Editorial. I totally agree with what the Editorial Board says and with its critique of Pawlenty’s rationale for vetoing the bill.

Here is the Editorial’s key section:

“Currently a person can, by executing a will, designate who shall be empowered to control final disposition of his or her remains,” Pawlenty wrote in his letter explaining his veto. “This bill therefore addresses a nonexistent problem.”

 

That’s not the reality, say some who have lived through the death of a partner, only to face technical entanglements that kept them from carrying out their final wishes.

 

“We had done what we thought was everything we could possibly do,” said Tim Reardon of Golden Valley, recalling the legal preparations he and his partner Eric Mann made before Mann’s death in 2006. “The myth is that you can legally take care of all that stuff.”

 

Reardon’s inability to carry out Mann’s wishes, until his partner’s understanding parents intervened, is an example of why the bill is needed. “To have to hear, after your partner is dead and you’re absolutely physically and emotionally spent, somebody say, ‘I’m sorry, your relationship is not recognized,’ it strikes this deep kind of disbelief. It’s just such a crazy violation of our rights, our dignity, of our respect.”

 

It’s heartless to put our fellow citizens through such heartache. And it’s unfair to make same-sex couples hire attorneys to get the same rights as married couples.

Governor Pawlenty’s veto is part of a larger battle that will lose the war. Marriage and all its benefits, including the right to a deceased, same-sex partner’s corpse, is on the horizon.

Categories
Death + Technology Death + the Law Death + the Web Funeral Industry

Digital Death Day! (Is Every Day)

Virtual Life after Death
Peregrine Andrews, BBC News (May 22, 2010)

Last week, May 20th, was the first Digital Death Day, an unconference in California of funeral directors, digital identity professionals, attorneys, technologists, entrepreneurs and obituary enthusiasts to share concerns and probably a few crazy-interesting ideas about managing digital identity after death.

Despite DeathRef being followed by digitaldeathday on May 4th, I have been sucked into the void of Other Responsibilities and neglected to pay attention until, oh, May 20th, as the unconference was actually happening. Bad librarian! Suffice it to say, it looked pretty darn cool. It appears that notes, podcasts and such are still being compiled. We’ll link them once they’re up. In the meantime,

The BBC also gets in on the action (article linked above), discussing the issue of digital assets such as domain names, sponsored Twitter accounts and virtual property in online games, as well as memorizing at social networking sites, or otherwise continued online engagement with the person’s profile, as though the person weren’t dead at all. This practice has been criticized as prolonging the grieving process, though others argue that it merely facilitates it.

Good stuff. As this post title suggests, Every Day is Digital Death Day — we’ll keep vigilant for what else emerges from the unconference and, of course, elsewhere on this topic.

Categories
Death + the Law Death Ethics Suicide

Doctors Should Talk with Patients about Death

Doctors Should Talk To Patients About How They Want To Die, Says Regulator
James Meikle, The Guardian (May 20 2010)

The last month’s worth of news coverage in the UK has focused on nothing but the May elections so it was good to see an old fashioned death and dying story in the Guardian. My first take on these new guidelines, that doctors should speak with dying patients about, um, dying, was a smirk.

I do know, however, that frank and candid conversations about dying are not everyone’s forte, so I appreciate what the UK’s General Medical Council has done. As the Guardian reports,

While the guidance does not address assisted suicide, the GMC says it is still illegal and doctors have to remain within the law. However, it says there is “no absolute obligation to prolong life irrespective of the consequences for the patient, and irrespective of the patient’s views.”

This has been causing some real gnashing of teeth today. And it should. While it is absolutely true that the prolongation of life is never absolute, it’s still something which most doctors will do. Enter, then, patients and their end-of-life wishes. At a certain point during medical treatment, a patient may very well say “I’ve had enough and I want to stop all this.” Patients also expect (as well they should) that doctors will continue to treat them without giving up. The whole situation, then, can be a real bind for doctors and patients alike.

What these new guidelines want to do, it seems, is say to UK doctors that it’s ok when patients die, assuming the patient has a terminal condition and that the patient has accepted death. Negotiating the end of life is a complex task, especially when it comes to medical care, so I think that what the GMC has done is a good thing.

Here is a stripped down list of what the new guidelines entail:

• Doctors must give patients approaching the end of life the same quality of care as all other patients.

• Decisions must start from a presumption in favour of prolonging life.

• Doctors may recommend particular treatment options they believe best for patients, but must not pressurise them to accept advice.

• Patients who feel under pressure from families or carers to accept or refuse treatments must be helped to reach their own decisions.

• Doctors must not base treatment decisions involving significant risk to patients solely on constraints of money, staff or equipment.

• Doctors must respect “as far as possible” wishes of patients who do not want to know in detail about their condition or treatment.

• Doctors can withdraw from providing care if religious, moral or other personal beliefs amount to a conscientious objection to a patient’s decision to refuse treatment.

Paula-Westoby-DNR-TattooThe new guidelines also reminded me, for some odd reason, of a funny and poignant story from late 2008. A 79 year old New Zealand woman, Paula Westoby, had Do Not Resuscitate tattooed on her chest. She did this so that in the event she unexpectedly died, her wishes would be known.

This is what I call a real commitment to the End of Life.

Categories
Death + the Law Death Ethics

Governor of MN to Gays and Lesbians: You Cannot Claim Your Partner’s Corpse

Pawlenty Vows Veto of Same-Sex Measure
Jason Hoppin, Pioneer Press (May 13, 2010)

Oh Tim Pawlenty, Governor of Minnesota. I know that you think you’ve got a chance at the 2012 Republican Presidential ticket but, alas, you’ll be disappointed. In all honesty, I don’t know who will be the GOP candidate but it won’t be you, that much I know. So instead of helping gay and lesbian Minnesotans in committed, long term relationships cope with a partner’s death you go ahead and veto a completely practical, sensible bill.

I am referring here to Minnesota Senate Bill No. 341 which, among other things, would allow same-sex domestic partners to claim their dead partner’s body in order to make funeral arrangements. Here is the bill’s language:

Subd. 2. Determination of right to control and duty of disposition.
(a) The right to control the disposition of the remains of a deceased person, including the location and conditions of final disposition, unless other directions have been given by the decedent pursuant to subdivision 1, vests in, and the duty of final disposition of the body devolves upon, the following in the order of priority listed:

The list includes 1.) Wills and Legal Instruments 2.) Spouses 3.) Domestic Partners and other groups such as children. It is the third group, domestic partners, which Bill 341 added and it is the reason Governor Pawlenty (by his own admission) vetoed it. Pawlenty’s rationale was that since same-sex couples can establish Wills or Health Directives in which a same-sex partner is named as the sole decision maker then the law was unnecessary.

In a sense Governor Pawlenty is correct but only so far as this means same-sex couples have to jump through a hoop that married straight couples do not. Furthermore, this law would have made the entire funeral arrangement process and final disposition of the dead body a lot simpler. As the law currently stands in Minnesota, any same-sex couple without explicit legal documents stating the couples’ final disposition wishes faces a potential legal challenge from next of kin. If the family of a gay man or lesbian woman does not like or even acknowledge the same-sex partner then that person can be legally excluded from the entire funeral.

This is a situation that funeral directors confronted quite a bit during the 1980s and 1990s, during the height of the AIDS epidemic. It’s a terrible scenario in which the body in the casket can literally become a dividing line. The Minnesota Senate Bill would have gone a long way towards simplifying how same-sex couples can claim their deceased partner’s body.

One day, and it will be in my own lifetime, these legal forms of discrimination and the individuals who supported them will look absolutely barbaric. This much I also know.

So there you go Governor Pawlenty. You’re not going to get the GOP nomination and you’re acting like a completely intolerant, insensitive brute. But at least you’re in good company: the Governor of Rhode Island did the same exact thing last November and he too will never be President of the United States of America.

Categories
Death + the Law Death Ethics

Rationing End-of-Life Care Debate

Debating the Ethics of Rationing End-of-Life Care
The NewsHour (April 26, 2010)

The NewsHour on PBS ran a short piece on a recent end-of-life care debate at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs. A video from the debate, which was much longer and must be available somewhere on the interweb, is embedded below.

Susan Dentzer, editor-in-chief of Health Affairs and NewsHour commentator moderated.

Here are the panel members:

Ira Byock, a doctor and director of palliative medicine at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, NH
Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics and a professor at the University of Pennsylvania
Ken Connor, chair of the Center for a Just Society and a lawyer in private practice
Marie Hilliard, director of bioethics and public policy at the National Catholic Bioethics Center and a registered nurse

Categories
Death + Humor Death + the Law

From Bea-yond the Grave

Bea Arthur Continues Her Activism in Death
Maria Elena Fernandez, LATimesBlogs (April 22, 2010)

Due to a special stipulation in her will, deceased comedic actress Bea Arthur is speaking out against animal cruelty.

As part of their McCruelty campaign, PETA is using images of Ms. Arthur, a.k.a. Maude, Dorothy, et. al. in new ads appearing in the Chicago Tribune.

I’m Rolling Over in My Grave!Just like many non-profits, PETA offers a “planned giving” option. According to PlannedGiving.com, “a planned gift is any major gift, made in lifetime or at death as part of a donor’s overall financial and/or estate planning.”

The world of planned giving is an area of estate planning and charity and philanthropic work that is sometimes overshadowed by the more splashy details of a will involving heirs and final disposition preferences. There are various organizations out there in the planned giving universe such as the stuffy-sounding Partnership for Philanthropic Planning. But in exploring a bit out on the web, we discover the lighter side of the biz.

The planned giving marketers have failures as well. The number one tip given by PlannedGiving.net is to “Stop telling your prospect you’re waiting for him to die.” The fix? Tell ’em it’s all about immortality. That’s what the Ayn Rand Institute seems to be trying to do with their Atlantis Legacy Program. One Atlantis donor put it this way: “I like the idea of my money continuing to fight for Ayn Rand’s ideas into the indefinite future, even after I’m gone. In a way, it’s a form of immortality: to be funding, beyond my lifetime, a world-changing institution.”

And so, we come full circle. In the immortal words of Bea Arthur, “Now this goes to the grave with you – I hate cheesecake!” (This was copied from ThinkExist.com, a dubious quotations site with little attributable documentation, and despite my official librarian duty to cite my sources, I’m gonna let this one slide.)

Categories
Cemeteries Death + the Economy Death + the Law

Backyards Aren’t Just for Dead Pets Anymore

Did I Mention the Graves Out Back?
Wendy Carlson, The New York Times (April 18, 2010)

 

Home Funerals Restore Intimacy to Grieving Rituals
Adriana Barton, The Globe and Mail (April 20, 2010)

April showers bring May flowers and, apparently, a deluge of articles on home burials and backyard cemeteries. The New York Times article on backyard cemeteries was spotted by my dad (the funeral director) who dutifully sent it along. And then this Globe and Mail article popped up a few days later. The Globe and Mail article is about home burials but it’s also about a screening of the PBS film A Family Undertaking. The film, which was released in 2004, is a good one and I recommend trying to see it when possible. I wrote about A Family Undertaking and other home burial issues last July. This weekend, the Vancouver Mountain View Cemetery is hosting a daylong seminar entitled The Final Disposition: De-Mystifying Death, Funerals, Cemeteries & Ceremonies and it kicks off with A Family Undertaking.

The seminar looks extremely interesting and I give Mountain View Cemetery credit for sponsoring the event. Public interest in home funerals, green burials, and backyard cemeteries is clearly growing and this interest isn’t going to subside anytime soon.

Interest in backyard cemeteries brings me to the New York Times article. As it reports, home burial was once common but has fallen in practice because, among other things, the effect on real estate resale value.

Now I, for one, would be totally cool with a cemetery in my backyard ESPECIALLY if it meant the house price was a little lower. I’m not bothered by the concept in the least. I have a hunch, too, that more and more people will pursue home funerals and burials as a joint venture. It makes sense.

Just make sure and get those permits signed!!!

Categories
Death + the Economy Death + the Law

Home Funerals (clap clap clap) Deep in the Heart of Texas

Meeting Offers Information on Home Funerals
Jeffrey Weiss, The Dallas Morning News (April 12, 2010)

When the Death Reference Desk formally launched in the summer of 2009, it became clear that economic issues related to death and dying would continually pop up. Earlier this week, The Dallas Morning News ran an article on home funerals which echoes a July article on the same subject in the New York Times.

And the Death + the Economy section of Death Ref contains a wide array of related articles.

In a nutshell, all of the articles on home funerals explain that many people are interested in taking care of the dead body (without the assistance of a funeral director) because it is cheaper. While that’s true, and I am the first to say that funerals are too expensive, I’m not so sure that money is a huge force behind the interest in home funerals. From what I can gather, it seems as if the people exploring the idea of a home funeral are middle income earners and higher and that the interested parties want a more personal service. This all makes sense too. Indeed, the return of home funerals isn’t so much an innovation as a throwback to 19th century funeral practices. This is a historical point often missed by reporters working the home funeral beat.

The article sums up the Texas home burial workshop this way:

But why would someone want to take charge of his own funeral? The most obvious reason is price. Depending on how much of the preparation is done at home, the family could save thousands of dollars. But there are emotional reasons as well, Bates said.


His mother died in 2000 in Arlington. And while a funeral home dealt with much of the preparation, the family wanted her buried where she grew up, in Tulia. So they rented a van, put the coffin in the back and stopped at places along the way where she had visited.

“It was good for all of us,” Bates said.

So there you have it. A nice combination of funeral thrift and personalized memorialization. In the event that combination seems too poigant here is a predictably over-the-top CNN video about a graveyard offering a buy-one-get-the-second-grave-for-50%-off sale. The classy title sums it up.

CNN: “Sometimes you gotta think outside the box”

Categories
Death + Humor Death + Popular Culture Death + the Law

How Dead Bodies are Supposed to be Repatriated

How Do You Repatriate A Body from the UK?
BBC News (April 7, 2010)

In response to last week’s incident at Liverpool John Lennon Airport wherein two women tried to take a dead man’s body on the plane because he “…was sleeping…” the BBC has helpfully explained the proper dead body repatriation procedure. I wrote about this case in all its Weekend at Bernie’s glory here.

There isn’t much more to say about this situation other than it is a bad idea to just show up at an airport with a dead body. A really bad idea.

The BBC helpfully asks and answers its own question:

But what is the proper procedure if the unthinkable happens and the body of a loved one needs to be transported from the UK? The most important step is to consult a doctor to confirm the person is deceased and provide a death certificate. This fulfils the need for the death to be registered in the country where the person passed away, which is a legal requirement.

So there you go. Make sure and get a note from the local doctor. Somethings never change.

Categories
Death + Humor Death + Popular Culture Death + the Law

Weekend at Bernie’s at Liverpool John Lennon Airport

Women Try to Take Body on Plane at Liverpool Airport
BBC News (April 6, 2010)

Two Women Arrested with Dead Relative at Airport
Pair told staff at Liverpool John Lennon airport that 91-year-old dead relative was sleeping
James Meikle, The Guardian (April 6, 2010)

Straight out of the Dead Body Stories You Can’t Make Up (DBSYCMU) file comes this gem. Two women tried to board a dead relative, sunglasses-clad and propped in a wheelchair, onto a plane at Liverpool John Lennon Airport. According to The Guardian, the women told anyone who asked that the man was sleeping.

Now, anyone with a keen sense of history will automatically recognize the uncanny similarities between this news item and the HILARIOUS 1980’s film Weekend at Bernie’s. And since the interweb is always there when you need it, even Weekend at Bernie’s has its own Wikipedia page. Again, DBSYCMU.

For those who don’t remember the movie, it goes a little like this: Bernie Lomax is a crooked CEO who invites two unsuspecting employees (Andrew McCarthy and Jonathan Silverman) to his beach house to have them killed by mobsters because McCarthy and Silverman are snooping around the company’s finances. Bernie is double crossed by the mob, ends up dead himself, and the two low level employees party hard with Bernie’s corpse. The film was so funny that it warranted a sequel and, apparently, a third installment is in the works.

I’m going to guess that what happened at John Lennon Airport had nothing to do with mobsters and partying at beach houses but it never hurts to dream.

In all honesty, what this entire Liverpool incident needs is a little Andrew McCarthy and Jonathan Silverman action. Least of which to help revive their film careers.

But I digress. Perhaps the moral of this most recent dead body story can be located in the tagline for Weekend at Bernie’s: He may be dead…but he’s the life of the party!

Here is the movie’s trailer to help jog some memories:

Categories
Death + the Law Death Ethics

Father of Dead Soldier Ordered to Pay Up


An update to our “God Hates Dead Soldiers” post. The family of dead Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder has been ordered to pay $16,510 in legal fees to Fred Phelps.

Interestingly, the case, which is to be heard by the Supreme Court, centers not on Phelp’s First Amendment rights, but rather “the complaint included claims for defamation, two counts of invasion of privacy (intrusion on seclusion and publicity given to private life), and intentional infliction of emotional distress.” (Citizen Media Law Project)

The judgment has sparked the outrage of Bill O’Reilly who has vowed to pay the Snyder family’s debt. Said O’Reilly,

“It’s obvious they were disturbing the peace by disrupting the funeral. They should have been arrested, but our system is so screwed up, so screwed up, that loons are allowed to run wild. Snyder is fighting the good fight, and he is taking his case to the Supreme Court as he should. We are behind him 100 percent.”

Hmmmm… not so sure I’d want Bill O’Reilly’s monied interests on my side.