A Battle of Words

Abstract

This article analyzes the writings of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross through the discursive lens of the phrase “dying with dignity.” For her, the phrase meant allowing someone to die comfortably his/her own death. This phrase has to be understood in relationship with the final “stage of acceptance” of her model. Describing this key part of her well-known scientific output, she often used, in the early 1970s, the phrase “dying in peace and dignity.” An evaluation of the evidence suggests that because the concept of dignity was co-opted by the pro-euthanasia movement during this decade, the language of dignity was little by little abandoned by her. In later years, only “peace” survived from her favorite expression. Although this concept of peace remains present to the end in all Kübler-Ross writings, the pro-euthanasia movement has also started to speak the language of peace.