Regulating liminality: Making sense of the vegetative state and defining the limits of end-of-life action

Abstract

Persistently alive but unaware, vegetative state patients are stuck in the transition between life and death – that is, in a liminal hotspot. This condition raises complex ethical and legal dilemmas concerning end-of-life action. Drawing on social representations (SRs) and the liminality framework, our research investigated how the vegetative state was constructed within the Italian parliamentary debates discussing end-of-life bills (2009–2017). We aimed to understand (1) how political groups represented the vegetative state, (2) how they legitimised different end-of-life bills and (3) came to terms with the issue of liminal hotspots. By dialogically analysing three debates (No. of interventions = 98), we identified six themes and discursive aims allowing parliamentarians to differently represent the vegetative state and support different courses of action. In turn, we identified new features of the psycho-social processes generating SRs: the dialogical tensions between anchoring and de-anchoring. Results corroborated the idea that de-paradoxifying liminality relies on group sense-making and, thus, different political leanings differently addressed the liminality of the vegetative state. We also reveal a novel feature of dealing with liminal hotspots informing the psycho-social literature that applies when a decision needs to be taken, such as in the case of crafting a law: moving from the paradox.