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agonyaunt2022-10-25 12:41 pm
ermingarden) wrote in agonyaunt2022-10-25 12:41 pm
Entry tags:
The Ethicist: Her Brother Most Likely Died From Autoerotic Asphyxiation. Do I Tell Her?
Warning for discussion of suicide:
When I was a young child, my friend’s 14-year-old brother died after hanging himself. Nearly everyone, including my friend, believes it was suicide. My cousin happened to be one of the paramedics who arrived at the scene and administered CPR to him unsuccessfully. Many years later my cousin (now deceased) shared some information with me about the incident that makes it appear that it was not suicide but an accidental hanging from autoerotic asphyxiation.
My friend has always struggled with not understanding why her seemingly happy brother wanted to end his life at just 14 years old. I’m fairly certain her father, who found him, knows it may have been accidental but has never shared that information with his daughter. Her father is now in his 90s. I think my friend would be comforted by learning that it may not have been an intentional suicide. But it could also cause her more anguish knowing it might have been accidental. Putting aside the ethics of how I acquired the information, what are my obligations to my friend? Name Withheld
You asked me to put aside the ethics of how you came by the information, but I don’t think we can. Whether we should pass on information depends, in part, on how we acquired it. Your cousin had an ethical duty to not disclose what he learned outside the context of medical care. You have a weaker but real reason to keep the information to yourself: We should all contribute to maintaining the conventions of medical confidentiality.
Even after people are dead, it’s wrong to reveal information they would justly have wanted kept confidential. (This consideration fades with time, in part because the potential knowers we care most about are people with whom we have a substantial connection, and their numbers diminish as time passes.) You may have another reason to bite your tongue. When your cousin told you these things, he may have explicitly asked you to keep them to yourself. And promises do not lapse simply because the promisee has died.
It would certainly have been wrong, in any case, for you to share the information you gathered as mere gossip. But you’re considering sharing the information in order to give solace to the dead boy’s sister. And there are two parts of what you have to say. One is that he was evidently engaging in autoerotic asphyxia, something he probably would have preferred to keep private; another is that he evidently hadn’t meant to kill himself, something he probably would have wanted his loved ones to know.
You think that the father has known all along. If that is the case, it would have been best had he told his daughter what he knew, rather than let her believe for years that her brother was driven to kill himself by distress that the family had failed to recognize. Would learning the truth from you much later have the same positive effect? Bear in mind that this revelation would trail another one: that you and her father have both hidden something important from her for all these years. That might harm her relationships with each of you. (Indeed, because her father would be implicated by any disclosure, you should consider discussing your quandary with him first, although this decision will depend on the nature of your relationship with him, and on whether you judge that conversation would be productive.) Bear in mind too that your friend would come to realize that her grief over the years was entwined in a misunderstanding. She may need to mourn again.
Assessing these pros and cons of speaking up now, you should ask this question: If you were in your friend’s situation, would you want to know the full story? That may help you answer a second question: Will your friend be better off, once she has time to reflect, if you belatedly tell her now? You know her well. You can only be guided by your intuitions here. If your answer to these two questions is yes, then the reasons I’ve identified for keeping quiet would be outweighed by the potential benefit: deepening her understanding of what must remain a harrowing event in her life.
When I was a young child, my friend’s 14-year-old brother died after hanging himself. Nearly everyone, including my friend, believes it was suicide. My cousin happened to be one of the paramedics who arrived at the scene and administered CPR to him unsuccessfully. Many years later my cousin (now deceased) shared some information with me about the incident that makes it appear that it was not suicide but an accidental hanging from autoerotic asphyxiation.
My friend has always struggled with not understanding why her seemingly happy brother wanted to end his life at just 14 years old. I’m fairly certain her father, who found him, knows it may have been accidental but has never shared that information with his daughter. Her father is now in his 90s. I think my friend would be comforted by learning that it may not have been an intentional suicide. But it could also cause her more anguish knowing it might have been accidental. Putting aside the ethics of how I acquired the information, what are my obligations to my friend? Name Withheld
You asked me to put aside the ethics of how you came by the information, but I don’t think we can. Whether we should pass on information depends, in part, on how we acquired it. Your cousin had an ethical duty to not disclose what he learned outside the context of medical care. You have a weaker but real reason to keep the information to yourself: We should all contribute to maintaining the conventions of medical confidentiality.
Even after people are dead, it’s wrong to reveal information they would justly have wanted kept confidential. (This consideration fades with time, in part because the potential knowers we care most about are people with whom we have a substantial connection, and their numbers diminish as time passes.) You may have another reason to bite your tongue. When your cousin told you these things, he may have explicitly asked you to keep them to yourself. And promises do not lapse simply because the promisee has died.
It would certainly have been wrong, in any case, for you to share the information you gathered as mere gossip. But you’re considering sharing the information in order to give solace to the dead boy’s sister. And there are two parts of what you have to say. One is that he was evidently engaging in autoerotic asphyxia, something he probably would have preferred to keep private; another is that he evidently hadn’t meant to kill himself, something he probably would have wanted his loved ones to know.
You think that the father has known all along. If that is the case, it would have been best had he told his daughter what he knew, rather than let her believe for years that her brother was driven to kill himself by distress that the family had failed to recognize. Would learning the truth from you much later have the same positive effect? Bear in mind that this revelation would trail another one: that you and her father have both hidden something important from her for all these years. That might harm her relationships with each of you. (Indeed, because her father would be implicated by any disclosure, you should consider discussing your quandary with him first, although this decision will depend on the nature of your relationship with him, and on whether you judge that conversation would be productive.) Bear in mind too that your friend would come to realize that her grief over the years was entwined in a misunderstanding. She may need to mourn again.
Assessing these pros and cons of speaking up now, you should ask this question: If you were in your friend’s situation, would you want to know the full story? That may help you answer a second question: Will your friend be better off, once she has time to reflect, if you belatedly tell her now? You know her well. You can only be guided by your intuitions here. If your answer to these two questions is yes, then the reasons I’ve identified for keeping quiet would be outweighed by the potential benefit: deepening her understanding of what must remain a harrowing event in her life.
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