Elizabeth Bouvia (born c. 1958) is a figure in the American right-to-die movement. Her case attracted nationwide attention in this area as well as in medical ethics.

History

On September 3, 1983, Bouvia, at the age of 26, admitted herself into the

psychiatric ward Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental health hospitals, behavioral health hospitals, are hospitals or wards specializing in the treatment of severe mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, dissociative ...

of Riverside General Hospital in

Riverside, California Riverside is a city in and the county seat of Riverside County, California, United States, in the Inland Empire metropolitan area. It is named for its location beside the Santa Ana River. It is the most populous city in the Inland Empire an ...

. She was almost totally paralysed by

cerebral palsy Cerebral palsy (CP) is a group of movement disorders that appear in early childhood. Signs and symptoms vary among people and over time, but include poor coordination, stiff muscles, weak muscles, and tremors. There may be problems with sens ...

and had severe degenerative arthritis, which caused her great pain. Bouvia was alienated from her family and husband, and had been entertaining thoughts of suicide. She requested hospital authorities to allow her to starve to death. When they refused and ordered her to be force-fed, Bouvia contacted the

American Civil Liberties Union The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...

, which assigned her a lawyer. In the subsequent lawsuit, the court upheld the hospital's decision and ordered

force-feeding Force-feeding is the practice of feeding a human or animal against their will. The term ''gavage'' (, , ) refers to supplying a substance by means of a small plastic feeding tube passed through the nose ( nasogastric) or mouth (orogastric) into ...

to continue (Pence 64-65).

Appeal

Following the court case, a bitter dispute broke out among physicians regarding the Bouvia case. Bouvia tried to resist the force-feeding by biting through the

feeding tube Eating (also known as consuming) is the ingestion of food, typically to provide a heterotrophic organism with energy and to allow for growth. Animals and other heterotrophs must eat in order to survive — carnivores eat other animals, herbi ...

. Four attendants would then hold her down while the tubing was inserted into her nose and liquids pumped into her stomach. Some physicians called this battery and

torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogational torture, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. definitions of tortur ...

, while others claimed that the hospital was right to err on the side of continued life (Pence 65). Bouvia appealed the

lower court A lower court or inferior court is a court from which an appeal may be taken, usually referring to courts other than supreme court. In relation to an appeal from one court to another, the lower court is the court whose decision is being reviewed ...

ruling and lost. Now, in addition to the force-feeding, she was hooked up to a

morphine Morphine is a strong opiate that is found naturally in opium, a dark brown resin in poppies (''Papaver somniferum''). It is mainly used as a pain medication, and is also commonly used recreationally, or to make other illicit opioids. T ...

drip to ease the pain of her arthritis. In 1986, she appealed again and this time the court ruled in her favour that the force-feeding constituted battery.

Outcome

After the court case, Bouvia decided that she would live. However, her statements made it clear that it was because of the pain of starvation and that she actually wished she was dead. In 1992, Bouvia's lawyer Richard Scott tragically committed suicide. In an interview with the ''Los Angeles Times'' after his suicide, Bouvia stated that she had gone on morphine after the original court ruling in 1983. She stated that side effects of the morphine made starvation unbearable and expressed bitterness that the 1983 ruling had gone against her. She stated that she had been strong enough to starve herself to death in 1983 and said that she never would have gone on morphine if she had known she would eventually get a court ruling in her favor. In 1998, she appeared on ''60 Minutes'', saying that she was still in pain and had felt great pressure to continue living; she expressed the hope that she would soon die of natural causes. She was still living in 200

In its obituary for USC professor Harlan Hahn, the ''Los Angeles Times'' on May 11, 2008, reported that Bouvia was still alive. Doctors in 1986 had predicted she could only live for another 15 to 20 years.

References

*Miller, Franklin and Diane Myer. "''Voluntary Death: A Comparison of Terminal Dehydration and Physician Assisted Suicide''" Thomas Mappes and Jane Zembaty Eds. Social Ethics (6th Ed). Boston: McGraw-Hill, McGraw Hill, 2002. 99-104. * Gregory Pence. Chapter 2, "Elizabeth Bouvia," pp. 19–24, Classic Cases in Medical Ethics, (8th Ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 2017). {{DEFAULTSORT:Bouvia, Elizabeth Euthanasia activists People from Riverside, California 1950s births Living people Activists from California Death in Riverside County, California 21st-century American women