July/August 2004

 

What’s so ‘bad’ about a ‘good death’? On the face of 12, nothing at all. But this is the age of ‘spin’. These days truth is often accessible only to those who have learned to read between the lines — or to ignore them altogether! For some years now, the Maranatha Community has been trying to provide the view ‘between the lines’ — assembling the evidence, acting as a reality check in a passionate debate where half-truth is a favoured weapon and facts are murdered by PR. This article is adapted from the Maranatha Briefing Paper ‘EUTHANASIA and Physician-Assisted Suicide’:

 

Most dictionary definitions present ‘to kill’ as ‘to put to death’ or ‘to cause death’. Whatever the inten­tions claimed for Euthanasia or Physician Assisted Suicide, this is nothing less than killing a patient. For this reason euthanasia is illegal in this country and in most countries worldwide. All definitions of euthanasia agree that euthanasia means shortening the patient’s life — usually based on the belief that the patient would be better off dead.

The European Association for Palliative Care in a recent statement emphasises that medicalised killing of a patient either without consent (non-voluntary euthanasia) or against their consent (involuntary euthanasia) should not be called euthanasia at all, since this con­stitutes murder. The Association also questions the distinction between ‘active’ and ‘passive’ euthanasia, stating that euthanasia is an active decision by definition. The term passive euthanasia’ should be abandoned. The Association therefore recommends using the terms euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide only.

The promoters of euthanasia often argue that despite medical advances, some patients die in pain and, therefore, lethal injections should be freely available to achieve a so-called ‘good death’. This is a dubious argument which underestimates the immense strides in palliative care, including hospices.

Similarly, they often suggest that dying patients should be deprived of water and food to hasten death. This, in itself, inevitably causes distress to the patient.

It is claimed that euthanasia is about the ‘right to die’. However, euthanasia is not about the ‘right to die’, it is about giving doctors the ‘right to kill’ their patients.

Murder evidence

It’s important to ask: ‘If euthanasia became legal, would patients be killed who had not requested to die?’ The experience of the Netherlands in legalising euthanasia points to the fact that euthanasia, once legalised, cannot be effectively controlled. Voluntary euthanasia inexorably leads to involuntary euthanasia. There is clear evidence from the Netherlands that at least one thousand patients including children are killed every year without their expressed consent and / or against their will. This constitutes murder.

Ultimately, if euthanasia became legalised, the decision whether to terminate or preserve a patient’s life will rest with the medical profession. Despite all the claims by proponents of euthanasia, this would dramatically increase the power doctors have over their patients and severely decrease patient autonomy. The German physician Christoph William Hufeland wrote in 1806: ‘It is not up to [the doctor] whether life is happy or unhappy, worthwhile or not, and should he incorporate these perspectives into his trade the doctor could well become the most dangerous person in the state.

It should be noted that it does not take a doctor to kill a person. We are convinced that the reasons why those propagating euthanasia wish doctors to be involved is the attempt to give euthanasia, the killing of patients, a degree of false respectability.

For some people it may not be morally objectionable to allow certain types of life and death decision making. For example, termination of pregnancy for medical reasons or legalising terminations in order to stop back street abortions. But there is a slippery slope here. One morally ‘acceptable’ decision can subtly open the door to other morally objectionable ones, such as termination of pregnancy solely for matters of convenience. For example, there is a case report of a termination carried out on a woman who wanted a fourth child, since her current pregnancy would have interfered with a skiing holiday...

If euthanasia became legal, anyone with a medical condition - not just a terminal one - might consider euthanasia as a ‘treatment option’. Euthanasia then would become an acceptable option for conditions such as depression, stress, loneliness, fear of impending disease or fear of decline, but also for disabled children or adults. Euthanasia would become part of the repertoire of medical treatment alongside established medical treatments such as pain relief, antidepressant medication, radiotherapy and chemotherapy. As abortion has become an option for any pregnant woman, euthanasia will become a ‘treatment’ option for anyone who is ill or considers him / herself to be ill. Dr Karel Gunning, a leading Dutch opponent of euthanasia, states: ‘Once you accept killing as a solution for a single problem, you will find tomorrow hundreds of problems for which killing can be seen as a solution.’

‘Life not worthy...’

No discussion on the issue of euthanasia is complete without considering the history of the euthanasia programme in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s. Between 1939 and 1945, German physicians participated in a euthanasia programme established to kill ‘life not worthy of life’. At the end of the war, an estimated 270,000 victims – disabled people, or people with mental illnesses, the elderly and ‘idiots’ – were selected by doctors and terminated. This included approximately 8,000 infants with birth defects or congenital diseases such as Down’s syndrome, and children with disabilities. The programme was expanded to include people with medical conditions such as epilepsy, polio, schizophrenia, paralysis and Huntington’s disease. The euthanasia programme demanded the co­operation of German doctors who decided who was to be killed.

The intellectual preparation for this was done through a 1920 publication by two German professors, Karl Binding, Professor of Criminal Law, and Alfred Hoche, Professor of Psychiatry. Their book on euthanasia with the title ‘Permitting the destruction of life not worthy of life’ was the first publication endorsing euthanasia by two highly respected academics. One of the authors had realised how much it cost the German state to maintain ‘idiots’ and how much capital is withdrawn from the nation for such an ‘unproductive purpose’. Euthanasia therefore would save huge amounts of money for the state.

In the end, assisted suicide would be less about ‘choice’ than about cutting the costs of health care. This is the conclusion of no less than Derek Humphry and pro-euthanasia attorney, Mary Clement, who in their book Freedom to Die, admit that cost containment may become the ultimate raison d’être for physician assisted suicide, that is, killing as a financial benefit to society: ‘There is no contra­dicting the fact that since the largest medical expenses are incurred in the final days and weeks of life, the hastened demise of people with only a short time to live would free resources for others.’

‘I think very soon the right to die will become the duty to die’ –  Dame Dr Cecily Saunders, founder of the Hospice movement.

Fundamental principles about the value of human life are at stake. The Christian belief in the sanctity of life is in danger of being rejected. The legalising of Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide would do immense harm to the ethical foundations of our culture.

For the full text of this briefing, contact:

The Maranatha Community, 102 Irlam Road, Flixton, Manchester M41 6JT

Tel: 0161 748 4858 Fax: 0161 747 7379

Email: office@maranathacommunity.freeserve.co.uk

Web:   http://www.maranathacommunity.org.uk