Euthanasia Introduction

Euthanasia is the deliberate killing of a person for the benefit of that person.

In most cases euthanasia is carried out because the person who dies asks for it, but there are cases called euthanasia where a person can't make such a request.

A person who undergoes euthanasia is usually terminally ill, but there are other situations in which some people want euthanasia.

The ethics of Euthanasia

Euthanasia raises agonising moral questions like these:

• is it ever right for another person to end the life of a terminally ill patient who is in severe pain or enduring other suffering?
• if euthanasia is sometimes right, under what circumstances is it right?
• is there any moral difference between killing someone and letting them die?

At the heart of the ethical and religious arguments over euthanasia are the different ideas that people have of the meaning and value of human existence, and of whether human beings have the right to decide issues of life and death for themselves.

There are also a number of arguments based on practical issues.

Some people think that euthanasia shouldn't be allowed even if it was morally right, because it would be abused and used as a cover for murder.

Killing or letting die

Euthanasia can be carried out either by doing something, such as giving a lethal injection, or by not to do something necessary to keep the person alive (for example failing to keep their feeding tube going).

'Extraordinary' medical care

It is not euthanasia if a patient dies as a result of refusing extraordinary or burdensome medical treatment.

Euthanasia and pain relief

It's not euthanasia to give a drug in order to reduce pain, even though the drug causes the patient to die sooner. This is because the doctor's intention was to relieve the pain, not to kill the patient. This argument is sometimes known as the Doctrine of Double Effect.

Mercy killing

Very often people call euthanasia 'mercy killing', perhaps thinking of it for someone who is terminally ill and suffering prolonged, unbearable pain. The word euthanasia comes from the Greek and means easy death.

Why people want euthanasia

Most people think unbearable pain is the main reason people seek euthanasia, but some surveys in the USA and the Netherlands showed that less than a third of requests for euthanasia were because of severe pain.

Terminally ill people can have their quality of life severely damaged by physical conditions such as incontinence, nausea and vomiting, breathlessness, paralysis, difficulty in swallowing...

Psychological factors that cause people to think of euthanasia include depression, fear of loss of control or of dignity, feeling a burden, or dislike of being dependent.

Does an individual who has no hope of recovery have the right to decide how and when to end their life?

Why euthanasia should be allowed

Those in favour of euthanasia argue that a civilised society should allow people to die in dignity and without pain, and should allow others to help them do so if they cannot manage it on their own.

They say that our bodies are our own, and we should be allowed to do what we want with them. So it's wrong to make anyone live longer than they want. In fact making people go on living when they don't want to violates their personal freedom and human rights.It's immoral, they say to force people to continue living in suffering and pain.

They add that as suicide is not a crime, euthanasia should not be a crime.

Why euthanasia should be forbidden

Religious opponents of euthanasia believe that life is given by God, and only God should decide when to end it.

Other opponents fear that if euthanasia was made legal, the laws regulating it would be abused, and people would be killed who didn't really want to die.

The legal position

Euthanasia is illegal in most countries, although doctors do sometimes carry out euthanasia even where it is illegal.

Euthanasia is illegal in Britain. To kill another person deliberately is murder, even if the other person asks you to kill them.

It is also a criminal offence in Britain, punishable by 14 years' imprisonment, to assist, aid or counsel somebody in relation to taking their own life.

Changing attitudes

The Times (24 January 2007) reported that, according to the 2007 British Social Attitudes survey, 80% of the public said they wanted the law changed to give terminally ill patients the right to die with a doctor's help.

In the same survey, 45% supported giving patients with non-terminal illnesses the option of euthanasia. "A majority" was opposed to relatives being involved in a patient's death.

Religious people don't argue that we can't kill ourselves, or get others to do it. They know that we can do it because God has given us free will. Their argument is that it would be wrong for us to do so.

They believe that every human being is the creation of God, and that this imposes certain limits on us. Our lives are not only our lives for us to do with as we see fit.

To kill oneself, or to get someone else to do it for us, is to deny God, and to deny God's rights over our lives and his right to choose the length of our lives and the way our lives end.

The value of suffering

Religious people sometimes argue against euthanasia because they see positive value in suffering.

Down through the centuries and generations it has been seen that in suffering there is concealed a particular power that draws a person interiorly close to Christ, a special grace.Pope John Paul II: Salvifici Doloris, 1984

The religious attitude to suffering

Most religions would say something like this:

We should relieve suffering when we can, and be with those who suffer, helping them to bear their suffering, when we can't. We should never deal with the problem of suffering by eliminating those who suffer.

The nature of suffering

Christianity teaches that suffering can have a place in God's plan, in that it allows the sufferer to share in Christ's agony and his redeeming sacrifice. They believe that Christ will be present to share in the suffering of the believer.

Pope John Paul II has written that "It is suffering, more than anything else, which clears the way for the grace which transforms human souls."

However while the churches acknowledge that some Christians will want to accept some suffering for this reason, most Christians are not so heroic.

So there is nothing wrong in trying to relieve someone's suffering. In fact, Christians believe that it is a good to do so, as long as one does not intentionally cause death.

Dying is good for us

Some people think that dying is just one of the tests that God sets for human beings, and that the way we react to it shows the sort of person we are, and how deep our faith and trust in God is.

Others, while acknowledging that a loving God doesn't set his creations such a horrible test, say that the process of dying is the ultimate opportunity for human beings to develop their souls.

When people are dying they may be able more than at any time in their life to concentrate on the important things in life, and to set aside the present-day 'consumer culture', and their own ego and desire to control the world.

The nature of suffering

It isn't easy to define suffering - most of us can decide when we are suffering but what is suffering for one person may not be suffering for another.

It's also impossible to measure suffering in any useful way, and it's particularly hard to come up with any objective idea of what constitutes unbearable suffering, since each individual will react to the same physical and mental conditions in a different way.

Euthanasia is bad because of the sanctity of human life

There are four main reasons why people think we shouldn't kill human beings:

• All human beings are to be valued, irrespective of age, sex, race, religion, social status or their potential for achievement
• Human life is a basic good as opposed to an instrumental good, a good in itself rather than as a means to an end
• Human life is sacred because it's a gift from God
• Therefore the deliberate taking of human life should be prohibited except in self-defence or the legitimate defence of others