"Or if wet, in the library."
Author Terry Pratchett wrote a very moving article about 'assisted suicide' (a term he objects to) procedures in the UK, in light of his own condition. It's not terribly long, and like most of his writing, worth your time:
"Life is easy and cheap to make. But the things we add to it, such as pride, self-respect and human dignity, are worthy of ( Read more... )
"Life is easy and cheap to make. But the things we add to it, such as pride, self-respect and human dignity, are worthy of ( Read more... )
Sir Terry added: ... 'I very much doubt [that a formalised approach to assisted dying could lead to it somehow becoming part of national health policy]. We are a democracy and no democratic government is going to get anywhere with a policy of comor even recommended euthanasia.
'If we were ever to end up with such a government, we would be in so much trouble that the problem would become the least of our worries.'
Apparently Sir Terry fails to realize that his government rations health care to the point where those able to pursue private options are punished for doing so. The UK regularly blocks treatment options deemed "unnecessary" in an attempt to keep down costs, particularly for those elderly enough to "not be worth it." (This, of course, could lead into a completely new rant about socialized heath care.) The idea that the line between patients choosing to die and family members choosing for a patient to die, and then doctors choosing, and the health-care bureaucracy choosing, will not be crossed, because his country is a democracy, is laughable. It's already happening here; the story from Holland, which allows active euthanasia, is even more chilling.
Practical issues aside, note how he denies that life has any value save what we choose to grant it. "Pride" and "dignity" are his guides for what lives are worth living, but these are terms entirely relative and open to definition. And in practice, those definitions will always be set by those in power. The late Richard John Neuhaus: The culture of death is an idea before it is a deed. I expect many of us here, perhaps most of us here, can remember when we were first encountered by the idea. For me, it was in the 1960s when I was pastor of a very poor, very black, inner city parish in Brooklyn, New York. I had read that week an article by Ashley Montagu of Princeton University on what he called “A Life Worth Living.” He listed the qualifications for a life worth living: good health, a stable family, economic security, educational opportunity, the prospect of a satisfying career to realize the fullness of one’s potential. These were among the measures of what was called “a life worth living.”
And I remember vividly, as though it were yesterday, looking out the next Sunday morning at the congregation of St. John the Evangelist and seeing all those older faces creased by hardship endured and injustice afflicted, and yet radiating hope undimmed and love unconquered. And I saw that day the younger faces of children deprived of most, if not all, of those qualifications on Prof. Montagu’s list. And it struck me then, like a bolt of lightning, a bolt of lightning that illuminated our moral and cultural moment, that Prof. Montagu and those of like mind believed that the people of St. John the Evangelist-people whom I knew and had come to love as people of faith and kindness and endurance and, by the grace of God, hope unvanquished-it struck me then that, by the criteria of the privileged and enlightened, none of these my people had a life worth living. In that moment, I knew that a great evil was afoot. The culture of death is an idea before it is a deed.
Pratchett is making a god out of autonomy: One should have the ability to do as one wills. This means that one can will to die if one chooses. But it also means that those without autonomy are protected not by any natural rights, but only by the will of those with power. And when those with autonomy come to see the lack autonomy as a fate worse than death--which Pratchett already does--how will they come to view those under their charge?
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Can or even should a society make a system that allows for those genuinely suffering to end lives? Sure, those in terrible pain or those extreme cases seem so black and white, but then come marching the endless gray areas. Do we trust legislators to rule wisely in all such cases? Would even an unbiased, intelligent, and caring ideal body even be able to rule correctly 100% of the time? What margin of error is acceptable?
(I'm often frustrated that issues that seem fairly straightforward suddenly explode when you attempt to argue them.)
But underlying all of this is a supposition that when life becomes too unbearable, it is not wrong to die by unnatural means.
Honestly, I'm not sure how I feel about that. My religious upbringing rails against it, crying that any form of suicide is a declaration of rebellion against God where one says "there is no way I can any longer serve God in any capacity by continuing to live," which of course seems the highest level of hubris.
On the other hand, take God out of the equation. Remove such thoughts of A Better Place, Heaven, Eternity etc., and really what motive is there for remaining alive when in constant high levels of pain, or enduring the slow, inevitable degeneration of one's brain functions? Even with God back in place, I sometimes fail to see the point. Are there heavenly bonus points awarded for having sucked it up for a few extra years in agony or a vegetative state?
But once again, I find myself wondering: How much agony? How do we decide what levels of a "quality of life index" merit euthenasia? And from there the debate devolves and becomes unending.
While Mr. Pratchett and others are in the position to make "furiously sane" decisions, and decide when they've had enough, how do we safeguard those who aren't? Or those who only think they are. Autonomy is critically important, but at the expense of setting legislative precedents with possibly terrifying ramifications? Even Mr. Pratchett recognizes this at several points, though perhaps he may be excused for wanting to believe the best about people, and his government.
But my take on the article was essentially Mr. Pratchett saying that It should not have to be like this; we're a sufficiently advanced culture that we should be able to do something about dilemma.
And with that, I agree.
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On the other hand, take God out of the equation. Remove such thoughts of A Better Place, Heaven, Eternity etc., and really what motive is there for remaining alive when in constant high levels of pain, or enduring the slow, inevitable degeneration of one's brain functions? Even with God back in place, I sometimes fail to see the point. Are there heavenly bonus points awarded for having sucked it up for a few extra years in agony or a vegetative state?
I'm reminded of one set of mass readings where the New Testament passage is on becoming "perfect through suffering." I mainly remember this because the Old Testament and Gospel readings are on marriage, which seemed quite appropriate, but that phrase "perfect through suffering" stuck with me. That is a very, very alien thought to our culture, which is all about the avoidance of suffering at all costs. But the Christian answer to suffering is to present a God who suffers on the cross and tells us to do likewise.
At the start of her John Paul the Great, Peggy Noonan describes an audience with the Pope toward the end of his life, when he was ravaged by Parkinson's and clearly on his way out. Pratchett would look at this scene and say, "His suffering is meaningless." Noonan said, "The Pope was teaching us how to die," how to accept that dying is a part of life. An attempt to find a quick exit from death is another way to avoid the reality of dying; I talked about that once coming from a different direction, but I think the main point expressed still applies:[A] culture which cannot admit death will invariably ignore, mistreat, or otherwise refuse its responsibilities to the dead, the dying, and the elderly. To take such responsibilities seriously would require taking death itself seriously, and that is something a materialistic culture ... cannot do by temperament."
In the novel, Illyich's friends look away and abandon him because looking at death terrifies them; letting the elderly remain in our midst is the same now. So why not choose a quick death, for them and for us at the "appropriate" time, so as to avoid having to see?
For convincing an atheist ... I don't know, aside from pointing out the practical problems. Certainly disabled rights activists oppose euthanasia for very obvious reasons. But here, I'm not trying to convince an atheist. I'm trying to convince you.
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But what if autonomy isn't critically important? What makes us think that autonomy outranks life, in any circumstance? My main objection to Pratchett is that his stated position denies any value life might have on its own; life is defined as worth living only if it meets certain attributes, conveniently decided here by Pratchett. But deciding what lives are worth living are not the sorts of decisions I want anyone--individuals, doctors, HMOs, or governments--to decide. In fact I deny that there is is a legitimate decision to make.
Our culture is "sufficiently advanced" to allow the mass slaughter of children on the grounds that they are not persons worthy of a right to life, and that women are entitled to autonomy over their bodies. (And both men and women are entitled to autonomy--meaning a lack of consequences--regarding their sex lives.) Once we've escaped that insanity, I might start trusting the moral wisdom of our society a bit more.
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