Health & Medical Question

What is a main ethical or relational concern in Moss’s narrative that you can identify and, throughout the novel, how does she depict the impact it has on her, on her children, and/or on Harvey?

Be specific, referencing particular page numbers and moments in the text.

1.What should we do when what Harvey wants for himself comes into conflict with what is best for his family as a whole? Who should be prioritized…the patient, or the family?
Competence and control
•Conflicting views on when to take over
•E.g. see the neurologist vs. the therapist
•Having control over your own life = important part of being a moral agent! When (and how much) it should be taken away is a big ethical issue
Competence is not an on or off switch
Can be partial.
But that makes it very messy for Marissa in knowing when to make decisions for Harvey (and which ones!)

2. Insurance & Nursing Care Issues
The book highlights difficulties in getting approval for care, for medical devices & for at-home nursing care
Expectation that families will do caregiving – even medically complicated care! – and pay privately for it
Family members (mostly women) give up paid work to provide care for sick & dying loved ones
Large scale ethical questions of who provides care & how it is (or is not) remunerated

3. Achieving a Good (or Appropriate) Death?
At the right time (neither too early nor too late)
In the right place
With the necessary preparations in place (advance directives, PoA for Health Care, planning for how to memorialize one’s life)
With those present that “stand for” the individual
When an individual reaches some level of acceptance
When the death is in keeping with the individual’s values & their connections with others

Note: “What an appropriate death might look like will vary from individual to individual, but no one’s death needs to be ideal in order to be appropriate” (Jennifer Parks & Maria Howard, Dying well in nursing homes during COVID‐19 and beyond: The need for a relational and familial ethic, p. 593)

Last Completed Projects