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March 11, 2005
The tragedy of Million Dollar Baby
Clint Eastwood's Oscar-winning boxing epic forces us to assess
the value of life amidst a shattered dream.
DANIEL EISENBERG AISH HATORAH RESOURCES
The critically acclaimed movie Million Dollar Baby strikes
deep at the issues of self-worth and the value of life. Maggie Fitzgerald
(Hilary Swank) is a tough-luck waitress, who persuades a grizzled
old trainer named Frankie Dunn (Clint Eastwood) to help turn her
into a world-class boxer. Just by believing in herself, Maggie reaches
the pinnacle of success and is about to become world champion.
(Spoiler alert: If you don't want to know the film's plot twist,
stop reading now.)
Suddenly, an injury renders Maggie permanently paralyzed from the
neck down, unable to move, and dependent on a respirator to keep
her alive. She is mentally alert, but feels no reason to go on living.
We can all identify with Maggie's suffering: the glory that could
have been and the horrible turn of events that has left her helpless.
Without hope of recovery, she attempts suicide, before finally persuading
Frankie to help her die.
Let us analyze the issues raised by the movie: Why would someone
ask to die and should we be willing to oblige? We take for granted
a world where patient autonomy is the overriding ethical principle
to which all other considerations must bend. Common wisdom declares
that the wishes of a patient, whether they be for more treatment,
less treatment or physician-assisted suicide, must be respected
and carried out.
Yet let us consider: If a physically healthy person, with a stable
family, wealth and a successful career, would state that they want
to die, we would naturally find it hard to support such a decision.
The stated reason, whether devastating or trite, would lead us to
conclude that this person is depressed and needs emotional support
and possibly psychiatric treatment. Stories of businessmen jumping
off buildings after a stock market crash fill us with pity for the
lost chance at intervention, not a feeling of satisfaction of them
having done the right thing.
So we need to ask: Is Maggie's decision to die reasonable? She describes
her previous fame, the crowds chanting her name, and feels that
having achieved that exulted status, there's no point in living
as a quadriplegic. "I had it all," Maggie tells Frankie,
"so don't take it away from me."
From a Jewish perspective, euthanasia is never permitted. Judaism
recognizes that a person has the autonomy to make health care decisions,
but insists that they must do so in a prudent manner. Jewish law
does not require the preservation of life in all instances and,
in fact, when someone is terminally ill and suffering, we do not
necessarily require treatments to prolong life. Yet Judaism categorically
states that one may never actively shorten the life of even a terminally
ill patient. Jewish law approaches the preservation of life as a
moral obligation, but recognizes that there are times, particularly
when a patient is terminally ill, when intervention should not be
performed. We are certainly never permitted to shorten the life
of someone like Maggie who is in a very compromised state, but not
dying.
But it does not require an edict from the Code of Jewish Law to
recognize that Maggie is making the wrong choice. From a purely
humanitarian approach, we may still question her decision.
Deeper responsibility
Indeed, Maggie's severely disabled state is an enormous challenge
to the human spirit. But in such a state of presumed depression,
is it in her best interest for us to give her the autonomy to end
her life?
We typically grant decision-making autonomy only where someone has
a legitimate right and ability to decide. For instance, we limit
the decision-making autonomy of children and of those who are mentally
impaired. We, as a society, do not feel they are in a position to
make prudent decisions. What is prudent is subjective, but that
does not stop us from establishing societal norms.
Our society is so enamored with autonomy that we sometimes fail
to consider other issues. In Million Dollar Baby, what is
presented as a question of the right to die is perhaps a distraction
from the deeper question of responsibility to help our fellow human
being. When crisis hits, we must help our neighbor to dig deeper
and solve the root of the problem even when they wish to die. As
the Torah teaches, "Do not stand idly by as your neighbor's
blood is shed" (Leviticus 19:16). No one would consider it
moral to yell "jump" to a person standing on a high ledge.
The bystander on the street would presume that the potential jumper
is distraught and needs emotional support and help.
So perhaps the real ethical question is not "why does Maggie
want to die?", but why there is not a greater offering of emotional
support? It has been repeatedly shown that for a terminally ill
patient in a hospice, the desire to live or die is closely tied
to the quality of pain relief and emotional support. Why isn't Maggie
offered any psychiatric treatment for her depression?
The message is that disappointment over a shattered dream is a greater
tragedy than death itself.
A study was done of those who survived attempted suicide by jumping
off the Golden Gate Bridge. Almost uniformly, these people reported
regretting their decision to jump. One man told New Yorker
magazine that upon jumping, "I instantly realized that everything
in my life that I'd thought was unfixable was totally fixable –
except for having just jumped."
Often we fail to recognize that a cry for death is really a cry
for help. Perhaps the real question is not whether we should be
assisting those who wish to die, but rather how we can help people
like Maggie choose not to die.
Eye to the future
Is it really possible for a person to want to live following an
injury like Maggie's? We need not look to the world of fiction for
an answer. Let's look at the real-life experience of someone who
was at the height of fame and then suffered a devastating injury
similar to Maggie's.
Christopher Reeve, better known as Superman, fractured his neck
in an equestrian accident, leaving him quadriplegic and dependent
on a respirator to breathe. Yet after a short period of despair,
he chose to make life matter and become an advocate for the disabled.
Specifically because of his fame, he was able to sensitize the world
to the plight of the disabled and become an unrelenting crusader
for stem cell research and spinal cord injury research.
While the fictional Maggie is convinced that her life is over after
her injury, the real Christopher Reeve chose to define himself not
as the movie star he had been, but rather by his future potential
– limited in some respects, but boundless nonetheless.
A fulfilling life requires hope for the future – new vistas
to reach, new goals to achieve. In the end, the real tragedy of
Million Dollar Baby is not the heart-wrenching decision that
Frankie has to make. His decision to kill Maggie is abhorrent from
a Jewish perspective. The real tragedy is that a young woman, robbed
of her dream, lacks the support she needs to recognize that life
is still brimming with unfulfilled potential, and that life is still
her most valuable possession.
Dr. Daniel Eisenberg is a radiologist in Philadelphia.
He lectures internationally on Jewish medical ethics. This article
comes from Aish Hatorah resources (www.aish.com)
and is distributed through the Kaddish Connection Network, [email protected].
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