The Death of Loving: Maternal Identity as Moral Constraint in a Narrative Testimonial Advocating Physician Assisted Suicide

This article considers the narrative testimonial as a rhetorical form in the service of public judgment, with particular attention to the witness’s credibility & communicative competence. The author argues a narrator & witness, as a participant-observer of the events recounted, must generate a story that does not compromise her credibility as a moral agent within the text, & that the capacity to do so is largely a function of communicative competence. He critically assesses a book by Carol Loving on her son’s physician-assisted suicide to illustrate his primary argument. (15 refs, 21 notes)