In the crucial matters of life and death, it is easy to declare one’s philosophic principles and beliefs, but it is much harder, if not impossible, to stick to them when faced with contradictory and complex reality. While the main hero of Henig’s short story, Margaret “Peggy” Battin, has devoted all her life to the advocacy of self-determination in dying, her husband’s becoming quadriplegic made her revisit her principles: “Alongside her physically ravaged husband, she would watch lofty ideas be trumped by reality – and would discover how messy, raw, and muddled the end of life can be” (54). “A Life-or-Death Situation” by Robin Marantz Henig is hostile towards science as it categorically proclaims simplified truths, which are often incompatible with reality, in all its diversity and complexity.

Despite remaining a highly contentious issue, euthanasia, or assisted suicide, has become an accessible and affordable option for terminally ill and severely injured people who wish to end their suffering. However, even for a fully competent and rational person it is very hard to define the very moment when their life ceases to be bearable and meaningful and starts to be worse than death. After the bike accident, Brooke has turned into “a plugged-in mannequin in ICU” (54), with severe pain in his body and total dependence on his caretakers. For Peggy, it is only his intact cognition that makes his life worth sustaining, despite that his body was a wreck: “But if he were to lose his intellectual functioning, he would be robbed of all the things that still give his life meaning: teaching, writing and interacting with the people he loves” (61).

Thus, when there is a real danger of his mind’s progressive decline, the couple seriously poses the question of euthanasia for the first time and Brooke even writes his Final Letter to explain his decision. However, after the next medical intervention, the danger of mind deterioration is averted and Brooke is again capable of feeling the moments of joy and even happiness, which would not have been possible if Peggy had taken the decision to let her husband die in the moment of pain. The constant flux in the desires of Brooke and Peggy reveals that the most important choice in a person’s life can be taken in an arbitrary manner, thus leading to unending regrets and what-if reflections. Therefore, by depicting the couple’s inner struggle in detail, the story shows how unnatural and confusing it is for people to define their own time of death, as there can never be any conclusive criterion that justifies the decision to end the suffering. In this manner, the philosophical system of Peggy is deficient since it does not account for the fact that personal self-determination is mostly based on emotional not rational premises and thus can hardly be considered valid.

At the core of Peggy’s “death with dignity” argument is the notion of human autonomy, but, when faced with the tragedy of her husband, she understands that true autonomy can never be reached in the choice between life and death. People never exist in a vacuum and their decisions are either explicitly or implicitly influenced by the actions, words and desires of those around them. Moreover, as Peggy says in the story, “everyone’s autonomy abuts someone else’s” (68). The lives of partners and relatives of a person are dependent on the outcomes of their decision and thus cannot be sufficiently detached from it. While Brooke fully retains his cognitive abilities, Peggy still has the unbearable responsibility to decide whether his requests for death are sincere and sober or they are just his emotional reaction to the next reversible complication. Therefore, autonomy, which Peggy views as the major premise of her philosophical argument, is always undermined with the presence of people who interpret the contradictory signs they get from a suffering person according to their own wishes or principles.

The case of Brooke makes Peggy revisit her philosophical argument as her love and attachment for her husband rise above her scientific beliefs and even common sense. She finds it very hard to apply her steadfast principles when the life of her much-loved person and, correspondingly, her life, is involved: “Scholarly thought experiments were once thing, but this was a man she adored – a man with whom she had shared a rich and passionate life for more than thirty years – who was now physically devastated but still free, as she knew he had to be, to make a choice that would make her anguish” (56). Peggy does not want to lose her husband and she does everything within her power to sustain his life, even though it often runs counter to her advocacy cause. In her loving care, she even goes on to deceive her husband by not telling him about his ability to function without his vent and thus making him to perceive it as a miracle. Revisiting her philosophical system, Peggy proclaims that autonomy can only exist in tandem with mercy as the moral construct, which safeguards the validity of self-determination, and her own mercy for Brooke is unlimited.

“A Life-or-Death Situation” by Robin Marantz Henig reveals how easily theoretical principles can be shattered when being tested in personal experience. Peggy has always defended end-of-life self-determination as the ultimate expression of personal dignity and autonomy, but the case of her husband let her understand that the conscious choice of death is devoid of both. Love and mercy have proven to be more important than abstract scientific principles when emotional attachment is involved.