Euthanasia always has and probably always will be a controversial topic. After all, it’s life or death. My goal in this post is to demonstrate why euthanasia is morally right and do my best to counter arguments against euthanasia.
Before diving into the arguments, let’s define euthanasia: “the painless killing of a patient suffering from an incurable and painful disease or in an irreversible coma.” (Apple Dictionary).
The first thing you may have noticed is that “killing” is present in the definition. It must be. The taking of life is necessarily killing, the problem is that killing is often equated to murder. This is not true — unless you’re a deontologist. However, when it comes to debates over euthanasia we’re not really debating whether or not doctors should be able to kill patients that have incurable diseases at their will. We’re discussing whether doctors should be able to euthanise at the patient’s will. I think I’d be hard pressed to find someone who believes it okay to legalise killing someone, even if the one who’s killed is in great pain.
To clarify, what we’re really talking about is voluntary euthanasia. I will, however, be referring to voluntary euthanasia as just “euthanasia” for the rest of this post for simplicity’s sake.
Let’s consider why anyone would contemplate being euthanised. There is only one reason really. They’re in agonising pain and it’s pretty much impossible that the pain will be alleviated unless they die. To live on would only be to exist in pain. Existing, is not to be confused with living. For patients that consider euthanasia an option they do not consider themselves living anymore. They are merely prolonging the inevitable while encumbered by a seemingly eternal suffering.
For some people, embracing the suffering may be a last fight, a middle finger to life itself. That’s fine if that’s how you want to leave the world. If you find virtue in needless suffering, go ahead. That may sound flippant, but I do mean it. The debate is not about whether or not you should choose euthanasia when on your death bed, it’s about whether euthanasia is an option at all. It’s an important distinction and one that’s not often reified.
“Dying with dignity” is the Australian campaign associated with the pro-euthanasia camp. It’s also a phrase that’s attacked a lot. People who view euthanasia as an act of cowardice believe that dying with dignity is dying with a fight, therefore not being euthanised. Again, that’s fine. However, the campaign is not about fighting, it’s about freedom. If you have no choice but to live the rest of your life in pain, are you dying with dignity? You’ve been given no options; you don’t even have the illusion of free will to give you something to live for. It cannot be called a virtuous fight if there is no alternative. Now, if euthanasia is an option, not only do those who wish to be euthanised and those don’t feel in control of their decision, but as a consequence can feel dignified in their last autonomous decision.
Earlier I wrote “for patients that consider euthanasia an option”, however if it’s legalised, the patient must qualify i.e. they must be considered. Interestingly, arguments about a euthanasia authority run both ways. Euthanasia supporters will say that it can’t be abused by malevolent family members because an authority checks each case. Opponents will posit that if an authority is deciding who can and can’t be euthanised they are labelling some people as more “worthy of death” which is against an egalitarian ideal.
Let’s take those one at a time. First, the abuse of euthanasia by bitter relatives. This may come in the shape of reorganising life insurance, the will etc. by getting close to the sickly relative and then manipulating them into believing that euthanasia is the best option for them, thereby allowing one to collect their inheritance and life-insurance payouts earlier than otherwise and before the ill’s mind changes. This sort of things happens with and without euthanasia. I can’t see how euthanasia would make it easier for family members to exploit vulnerable relatives. Perhaps it makes for a sensationalistic headline “Daughters have mother killed in order to collect their inheritance early!!” The headline only changes to “Daughters eagerly watch mother die as they await their inheritance for 3 weeks longer than if euthanasia was an option”. Euthanasia only speeds up the process for evil’s rewards to be reaped. It doesn’t enable it, nor encourage it.
What about having someone be more “worthy of death”? The trick with this point is in the phrasing. “Worthy” is associated with positive rewards and consequences where as death is a negative. It’s oxymoronic. It’s not about whether you’re “worthy” at all. It’s about whether or not the utility of allowing you to be euthanised if you so desire is greater than the utility of not doing so. If you are in 10/10 pain and there is a 0.000001% chance of survival (there’s always a slim chance), the pain you’re in is great enough that it outweighs the risk that the euthanasia may be abused in some way. If you’re in 7/10 pain and there’s a 1% chance of you surviving, perhaps one ought not to be burdened with a choice in order that they may hold out some extra hope. These are hypothetical examples, I’m not sure exactly what makes one qualify over another, however, there are certainly extreme cases where the utilitarian calculus only gives one solution: euthanasia as an option.
If given euthanasia as a choice, it may feel like the authority has done the maths and has decided that you’d be better off if you died. This can influence one’s decision. It is, in my opinion the most valid argument against legalising euthanasia, even though it’s against the implementation and not euthanasia itself. Imagine: You’re lying on a hospital bed thinking that euthanasia is not only the best decision for you, but for others. The money saved by no longer supporting you can be used to help people you can be cured. This is immense social and moral pressure and the fact that someone may be lead to feel this way is certainly a flaw in the current system. However, it’s only pressure if it’s taken as pressure. I think if you qualify for euthanasia, you’re already in plenty of pain and are not thinking of the social pressure but of the much more immediate physical pain. A solution may be that patients are not told they can (or cannot) consider euthanasia. They must first say they want it (consistently, as is the law) with a doctor or family member who then contacts appropriate authorities to see if they qualify or not. That way the decision is already made by the person with no influence by the euthanasia authority, which changes depending on where one is located.
What about if killing yourself, or granting your own death, whether in pain or not is still vicious. A point I’ve heard a few times is “If you legalise voluntary euthanasia for people with terminal illnesses, you might as well allow it for everyone since life is suffering.” Well, that’s true. A large portion of life is suffering. No one will deny you that point. However, suffering through a terminal illness, physically, where the only cure is to die, is much different from the kind of “curable” suffering one might experience when they’ve been laid-off and now sit crying on the couch, jobless. There are shades between black and white. In the video linked, the counter-example given is “if you saw someone starving and there was nothing you could do about it, would it be okay for you to kill them, to relieve their suffering.” The guy in the video has conflated euthanasia with voluntary euthanasia. I’ve used euthanasia to mean voluntary euthanasia in this post, but I’ve made it clear from the beginning that that is what I’m doing, and that I certainly stand against involuntary euthanasia. In my opinion, you should euthanise the starving person if they desire it and you are okay with it from an emotional perspective. If they want to be killed by you, but you don’t agree, that’s okay, you shouldn’t have to do it. No one should be able to tyrannise you. Conversely, if you want to die, but no one wants to administer the dose, I’m afraid that’s bad luck. If both parties are willing, it is tyranny not to allow it.
Euthanasia by definition, means someone else must be involved. Many question the psychological impact the process may have on doctors. There’s a simple solution to this. Only doctors who want to do it, do it. I think most doctors who agree with the premise of voluntary euthanasia would agree to euthanise patients who want it. They are not doing their patient an injustice. They are relieving the incurable suffering of their patient and are fulfilling that patient’s final wish. Even then, if there’s some proven psychological disfunction that occurs after euthanising a number of people, it wouldn’t be too difficult for a robot to administer the dose. Of course, someone has to start up the robot, but it’s a barrier of separation that may help those with weaker stomachs (but good moral judgement 😉 ), which, by the way, I do not intend to be derogatory.
Another counter point is: If euthanasia is legalised there is less incentive to give funding to research. We tend to give money to people who need it either directly or via charities. We help people pick up the books they dropped and hold the door open for people. I don’t need an economic incentive to do those things and to say that an economic incentive is required is absolute falsity. If anything there is an economic incentive to fund research for incurable disease, selling the cure. Then you also have the added benefit of making money while saving people! To fairly represent the point made in the video, he doesn’t say economic is required and does say that we’ll probably still go on researching things that don’t have economic incentive. I think that fact that this point even has to be made is just a sad fact about society and not a direct counterpoint to euthanasia.
That’s my stance on voluntary euthanasia and all of my supporting arguments and counterarguments. If you think I missed anything I’d be very happy to hear from either side.
