Is This Woman Dying Wrong? Bill Keller Is On It

Bill Keller raises eyebrows, and hackles, in these parts whenever he turns his attention to the Catholic Church (or the arguments against war). But did you know he's similarly careless and smug and mansplainy when he writes about other subjects, too?

Today's column is a perfect example. Keller has some thoughts about terminal illness and dying. He seems to want to argue, or at least propose, that Americans should be less committed to fighting for every last breath, whatever the cost (financial or otherwise), and more open to the death-with-dignity approach that embraces palliative care, as exemplified by his British father-in-law. He doesn't actually establish that Americans ARE unduly committed to extraordinary life-saving measures, he just asserts it, but maybe it's a valid place to begin a discussion.

Instead, though, Keller turns to a woman named Lisa Adams who has been using social media to chronicle her experiences fighting breast cancer. She's currently posting frequent updates to Twitter from her hospital room at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Keller uses her as an example of what's wrong with How We Die Today.

So there's the first problem: you want to say that American cancer patients are apt to approach death badly, fine, that's provocative, but maybe you have a point. But to hang that argument on a specific cancer patient -- and one who is not really a "public figure" and thus impossible to ignore, but rather a woman who has a following on Twitter but isn't otherwise bothering anybody -- that's where a slightly more reflective person ought to say, "You know, maybe this is unnecessarily insensitive."