posted 28th January 2023
No one wants to suffer; most people don't want to die. No one wants to see someone they love suffer; no one wants to see someone they love die. Sometimes, though, the only way to end our own suffering, or the suffering of someone we love, might be to hasten our, or their, death. But helping someone else to die is currently against the law. Should that law be changed?
The conflict between the instinctive wish to avoid suffering in ourselves and in those we love, and the no less powerful instinct to preserve life, lies at the heart of any debate on assisted dying.
The fundamental question is this:
Are there any circumstances in which it is right to take life in order to prevent suffering?
This fundamental question can be broken down into further questions:
1. Is life inherently sacred?
2. Can we make exceptions to universal laws out of compassion for individuals?
3. Are all kinds of life equally valuable?
4. Which is more important, personal autonomy or the preservation of life?
5. What dangers might legalising assisted dying bring?
6. Assisted dying is going to happen anyway; isn't it better to regulate it?
Let's consider them one by one.
1. Is life inherently sacred?
The word 'sacred' suggests religious belief. It literally means 'made holy'. Most religions oppose assisted dying because they believe that life is holy, since it comes from God. However, you do not have to be religious to hold life as a sacred value, to believe in 'the sanctity of life'. You can detach the term 'sacred' from its religious origins, and repurpose it to mean 'of supreme value, important above all other things'. So non-religious people as much as religious people can say that they believe in the sanctity of life.
If you hold this belief, then there can be no circumstances in which it is right to take life, even to relieve suffering. All people, whatever their age or state of health, must have their lives protected. To suggest that you could take someone's life - or actively assist them to take their own life - is fundamentally inhumane. Of course, when we see someone we love in great suffering, it is only natural, and indeed kind, to want to free them from that suffering. We should do all we can to alleviate their suffering through treatment and care. But we should not alleviate it by ending their life prematurely. To do so is to disrespect their humanity.
Equally, if we ourselves are in great pain, it is entirely human to want to end that pain, even if it means ending our lives. But while no one should be punished by the law for attempting to kill themselves, or condemned by society for succeeding, it is quite wrong to allow doctors to assist people with suicide. A doctor's duty is to preserve life, not to end it; this is even more important than the doctor's duty to alleviate suffering. Nor should a suffering person's loved ones be allowed by the law to assist them in suicide. We can respond to breaches of this law with compassion, and moderate how the law responds, depending on the circumstances. Clearly, a loving wife who gives an overdose to her husband when he is in great pain and has only weeks to live is very different from a manipulative con man who befriends a lonely old woman, gets her to sign her house over to him in her will, and then hands her some pills. We might let the wife off with a minimal penalty, but we must still make it clear that she has broken the law. No matter how good and loving the intention behind the act, once we allow anyone to help another person to kill themselves, we are attacking a fundamental principle of a civilised society: it is wrong to take life. Of course it is hard to maintain this principle in the face of intense and incurable suffering, but there is a wise saying, 'Hard cases make bad law.' That is, you should not base law-making on extreme and exceptional cases.
2. Can we make exceptions to universal laws out of compassion for individuals?
This might be the initial response to the arguments made above. We can accept the fundamental principle that we should respect and preserve life, but argue at the same time that there are circumstances where compassion should take priority. We can still say that life needs to be preserved, but we can allow some exceptions to this general rule. After all, the law already allows soldiers and police officers to take life in order to protect the public, and it is sometimes legal to kill another person in self-defence when your own life is in danger, so it need not be that big a step to allow the taking of life to end acute suffering. As for hard cases making bad law, well, if there are enough hard cases, then maybe it is the law that is bad and it needs changing.
3. Are all kinds of life equally valuable?
Why should we assume that all life is equally valuable? Should we perhaps focus on quality of life rather than quantity? What value does a life with no pleasure, no control, no hope for the future, nothing but pain, really have? You say you want to respect humanity by preserving life - how then is it respecting a person's humanity to subject them to unending indignity and suffering from which they wish to be released?
What about people in a persistent vegetative state, kept alive by machines, with no prospect of recovery? They may be biologically alive, but they are not biographically alive: that is, their organs may be functioning, but they have no consciousness. They have no hope of any future. Truly respecting life means respecting the quality of a person's life.
4. Which is more important, personal autonomy or the preservation of life?
Perhaps simply having life is not the highest value. Perhaps autonomy - the ability to have control over our lives - is more important. If we deny someone the right to have assistance with ending their life in a dignified way, we show disrespect for their humanity, because the essence of humanity is the ability to make free choices about our destiny.
Doctors who treat terminally ill people often report that the patients who find it hardest to cope are those who, in their earlier lives, were powerful or important people, used to being in charge. The loss of autonomy that goes with being seriously ill is, for some people, even worse than the pain. For those who feel this way, restoring their autonomy over their own lives will at least restore some of their human dignity. It isn't being alive that makes us human, it's having life. And if we have something, if we own it, we are surely entitled to stop having it when we no longer want it.
5. What dangers might legalising assisted dying bring?
This is the so-called 'slippery slope' argument, which proposes that a change which is initially well intentioned will slowly but inexorably fall open to abuse. This kind of argument is often fallacious, but in the case of assisted dying it does have validity.
We might start out by seeing assisted dying as a humane way to end unnecessary suffering. If we put enough safeguards around it (in debating terms, have a tight enough mechanism), there should be no danger of abuse. But then an old person who does not really want to die says they do because they feel guilty about the burden they are placing on their children. A wealthy old man is persuaded by his greedy son that his suffering is unbearable. A disabled woman internalises society's negative attitudes towards disability so profoundly that she comes to believe that her life is not worth living. What if the definition of suffering ends up being extended to mental suffering? One symptom of severe depression can be very powerful suicidal thoughts. People often recover from depression, are liberated from these thoughts, and go on to live happy, fulfilled lives. If they had been allowed - perhaps even encouraged - to end their mental suffering while in a depressive episode, they might never have had the opportunity for a happy life. As an example of how all this could happen, look at abortion. When the law on abortion in the UK was changed in 1967, the original intention was that abortion would be used as an exceptional last resort; now, it is effectively available on demand. Once something is legal, it is very hard to stop it becoming commonplace.
What is more, just the fact of having legalised assisted dying on the statute books sends out a message about how we value life, and in particular the life of people who are sick, heavily injured or disabled. Changing the law to allow same-sex marriage has done much to alter wider social attitudes towards gay people, making them feel more accepted and valued. Changing the law to allow euthanasia would have the opposite effect on sick, injured or disabled people, making them feel less accepted and valued.
6. Assisted dying is going to happen anyway; isn't it better to regulate it?
This was the main argument made for decriminalising abortion in the UK in 1967. Once there are strict rules about how and when you can practise assisted dying, it is much harder for an unscrupulous relative or a power-hungry doctor to take someone's life for the wrong reasons. There is a considerable amount of evidence that since assisted dying has been legalised in the Netherlands in 2002, its practice has actually decreased. The law should be pragmatic, accept that people are going to find ways to end their lives when they are suffering, and protect them from bad choices and exploitation through carefully thought through and properly debated regulations and structures.
Motions that go with this topic
1. This house would legalise assisted dying for terminally ill people.
2. This house would legalise assisted dying for severely disabled people.
3. This house would legalise assisted dying for people with severe and incurable depression.
4. This house would legalise involuntary euthanasia for people in a persistent vegetative state.
5. This house would legalise assisted suicide.
6. This house believes in the sanctity of life.
