By Peter Barnes
The word ‘euthanasia’ literally means ‘good death’, as ‘eugenics’ means ‘good birth’. Invariably, euthanasia is presented in terms of ‘mercy killing’. ‘Weasel words’ are common in every field these days, and euthanasia has spawned many, such as ‘exit preference’ and ‘death with dignity’. In April 2014 Philip Nitschke argued that ‘we need a new word for suicide’. Nitschke lost his licence to practice medicine in 2014-2015, but ultimately won it back. Both Andrew Denton and Jeff Kennett have tried to portray Nitschke as an unhelpful extremist, but that is the point – or at least a point. Lax laws will not save us from extremists. Nitschke’s wife, Dr Fiona Stewart (the executive director of Exit International), even argues for euthanasia and assisted suicide without the need for any medical authorities being present.[1]
Motives?
Two motives are often combined for those who advocate euthanasia: compassion and freedom.
(a) compassion.
Isaac Asimov has stated the case for the pro‑euthanasia position: ‘No decent human being would allow an animal to suffer without putting it out of its misery. It is only to human beings that human beings are so cruel as to allow them to live on, in pain, in hopelessness, in living death, without moving a muscle to help them.’[2] Phrased like that, euthanasia seems the only compassionate thing to do, but Asimov sees no distinction between human beings and animals (like the movie They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?), and sees no positive value in suffering. In fact, Carol Levett, president of the NSW Nurses and Midwives’ Association, found it strange that sick pets are given euthanasia but sick human beings are not.[3] For centuries Christians prayed to be delivered from sudden deaths; now the enemy is prolonged dying.
The media personality, Andrew Denton, (whose father, Kit, died in 1997) launched the organisation Go Gentle Australia with the not so gentle demand that euthanasia be legalised, and that the Church stay out of taking sides on the matter.[4] Things are seldom as they are presented in modern debates over social morality. After helping to found the Hemlock Society in 1980, Derek Humphry was supposed to have poisoned Jean, his first wife, who was dying from breast cancer. He then went on to form the pro-euthanasia organisation, Exit. He married Ann, his second wife, but she also contracted breast cancer, and he abandoned her in 1989, and she committed suicide in 1991. But not before she had revealed to Rita Marker that the pro-euthanasia book, Jean’s Way, had been much sanitised. It turns out that Humphry had to suffocate Jean when the poison failed to work. Ann’s suicide note stated to Humphry: ‘There, You got what you wanted. Ever since I was diagnosed as having cancer, you have done everything conceivable to precipitate my death.’ She added: ‘He is a killer. I know.’[5]
Small wonder that Humphry resigned from the Hemlock Society in 1992, and that Rita Marker went on to write Deadly Compassion.[6]According to Scott Rae, from Talbot Theological Seminary in California, legalising euthanasia to exhibit compassion and relieve pain is like ‘burning down the barn to roast the pig’.[7]
Dr Harvey Max Chochinov, in his Dignity Therapy, cites research which says that in 57% of euthanasia cases in Holland, ‘loss of dignity’ was the issue, and only in 5% was pain given as the reason.[8] If people have hope and a reason to live, they can deal with almost any circumstances. Therapy can include things like recording their thoughts for the sake of their families. As Margaret Somerville says: ‘Hope is the oxygen of the human spirit.’[9]
(b) freedom.
This relates to human autonomy, although it should be recognised that this is simplistic indeed. One person’s freedom invariably limits another’s. Euthanasia ignores the fact that people change their minds; where they are today is not necessarily where they must be tomorrow. Derek Humphry emphasised human autonomy but he also stated that euthanasia could save ‘hundreds of billions of dollars’.[10] The former Governor of South Australia, Sir Mark Oliphant (1901-2000), thought that euthanasia should not be a crime but a right. The Victorian premier, Jeff Kennett (1992-1999), in 1995 advocated euthanasia on the grounds that it was a ‘beautiful thing.’[11]
The Current Situation
Assisted suicide or death with dignity laws have been passed in the USA, in Oregon (1994), Washington (2008), Vermont (2013) and California (2016). In the early 1990s it emerged that in Holland euthanasia had been practised in a surprising number of deaths – over 2% – with much falsification of death certificates. About 0.7% of these deaths were non-consensual, although these figures probably disguise the higher figures.[12] Insurance companies do not traditionally pay out on suicides, so in Australia there has been talk of hiding euthanasia deaths in order for such claims to be made.[13]
Lawmakers – and agitators like Andrew Denton – talk about ‘strict safeguards’ but they do not exist and cannot exist; there is invariably what is called ‘scope creep’. Since 2002 children as young as twelve can demand euthanasia in Holland, and can over-ride their parents’ wishes. Since 2013 the euthanasia of children has been available in Belgium, although it is illegal to sell them alcohol or cigarettes. In Massachusetts in June 2017 a woman, Michelle Carter, was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter because her friend, Conrad Roy III had stepped out of a truck he had filled with lethal fumes, and Ms Carter told him over the phone to get back in the cab of the truck, and then listened to him die without trying to help him.[14] If assisted suicide is legal, where is the crime? The appeal – which will almost certainly come – will raise such an issue. The sin – which ought to be obvious – indicates what may happen in a culture where human life is not given its God-given respect.
The Nazi Precedent
It is worth remembering that the first society in modern times to usher in euthanasia laws was Nazi Germany. Euthanasia was widely practised in the 1930s, and became law in 1939. Ultimately, well over 70,000 persons were exterminated, for being mentally defective, psychotics, epileptics, paralytics, or sufferers from Parkinson’s Disease and multiple sclerosis. The real figure is probably 200,000. As Leo Alexander commented:
The beginnings at first were merely a subtle shift in emphasis in the basic attitude of physicians. It started with the attitude, basic in the euthanasia movement, that there is such a thing as a life not worthy to be lived. This attitude in its early stages concerned itself merely with severely and chronically sick. Gradually, the sphere of those to be included in this category was enlarged to encompass the socially unproductive, the ideologically unwanted, the racially unwanted and finally all non‑Germans.[15]
We could be but a short step from some sort of echo of Nazi Germany. C. Everett Koop (US Surgeon-General under President Reagan, 1981-1989) is not alone in warning: ‘Auschwitz could be in the offing.’[16]
Michael Burleigh in Death and Deliverance has shown that the euthanasia
mentality in Germany did not suddenly emerge with Nazism; there had been a long period of preparation for it.[17] It was not a case of the sudden imposition of Nazi tyranny, but a gradual erosion of the right to life in favour of the compulsion to be eugenically fit. The slippery-slope argument is often subject to criticism, even ridicule, and J. A. Burgess, for example, maintains that just as soldiers can be trained to be discriminating concerning whom they kill, so too can medical practitioners.[18] He adds that the ancient Greeks and Romans went in for infanticide, and the Eskimos practised patricide, matricide and gendercide without undergoing a gradual slide into wholesale disrespect for human life.[19] It is difficult to see how we ought to view these arguments as comforting. There are connections – a concern for eugenics, even ‘designer babies’; overwhelming bureaucracy; evolutionary ethics promoting the ‘survival of the fittest’; difficulties in obtaining an accurate picture of what was being practised; reality disguised by compassionate-sounding words.
Some Biblical Texts Bearing on Euthanasia
The basic text has to be ‘You shall not murder’ (Ex.20:13). Voluntary euthanasia could not be classified as first‑degree murder, but it undermines the sanctity of human life. When the emotionally‑drained Elijah asked for death, God twice refused his request (1 Kings 19). The Bible gives two accounts of assisted suicide ‑ that of Abimelech (Judges 9:53-57) and that of King Saul (1 Sam.31). In the latter case, the soldier who claimed to have killed Saul was in turn killed by David (2 Sam.1:5‑10). Both of these deaths are portrayed as judgments by God. It is God who has appointed us to die (Heb.9:27). He promises to uphold those who trust Him, even in old age (Psalm 71; Isa.46:3‑4). The wearing out of the body can go hand‑in‑hand with spiritual growth (2 Cor.4:16). An old and incapacitated person, for example, may have a valuable prayer ministry.
Our bodies are not our own to do with them as we will (1 Cor.6:19-20). At the basis of the push for euthanasia is humanism. Hence, as Nigel deS. Cameron points out: ‘The old axis of sanctity-of-life and healing is rapidly being replaced by a new one of quality-of-life and relief-of-suffering.’[20] It is inevitable that those who hate God love death (Prov.8:36).
Practical Problems with Euthanasia
(a) Medical fallibility. The diagnosis may be incorrect or the prognosis may be difficult to determine.
We need to listen to C. Everett Koop on this crucial point: ‘I recognize
full well the chance for errors in judgment. Because of that I try to err only on the side of life.’[21] In March 1999 a cancer patient named June Burns was used in political advertisements to advocate euthanasia. She fought back tears and pleaded for people to end her suffering. All this was financed by the Voluntary Euthanasia Society of NSW. However, everything had changed by the end of the year as she had unexpectedly picked up, and wanted to go on living. Indeed, she survived until November 2007.
Brain death is not straightforward. In 2013 a man was put to death at a Swiss suicide clinic, but later found to have received the wrong diagnosis. In Denmark in 2012 a nineteen year old brain dead girl was about to have her organs taken to be donated to someone else, but she did not die.[22] In Solzhenitsyn’s novella, We Never Make Mistakes, it was the NKVD (the Soviet secret police) investigator who fobs off Zotov about the fate of a stranded Soviet officer, Tveritinov, with the words: ‘We never make mistakes.’[23]
(b) Patient fallibility.
Patients may be depressed for a time. A compelling example here would be Joni Eareckson just after her diving accident in 1967 which left her a quadriplegic, and again in 1991 when she had blood pressure problems, weight loss, infections, and pressure sores on her sides and back. On both occasions she felt quite suicidal. In 1967 she even felt angry that she could not perform the deed herself.[24]
(c) Overt or covert popular coercion.
For all the language of dignity and the like, in 2008 Dame Mary Warnock stated: ‘If you’re demented, you’re wasting people’s lives – your family’s lives – and you’re wasting the resources of the National Health Service.’[25] Scott Rae has every reason to warn: ‘My greatest concern is that what begins as “the right to die” will slowly and imperceptibly morph into “the duty to die”.[26]
(d) State coercion.
Rest homes in Belgium which do not allow euthanasia are being prosecuted by the state. In 2012 Tom Mortier’s mother was ‘euthanized’ in Belgium, and Tom only found out later. He took the case to the European Court of Human Rights. Conscience is precious, and Margaret Somerville is right to say that ‘a doctor’s good conscience is a patient’s last protection.’[27]
(e) The difficulty in determining motives.
For all the dislike in academia of the ‘slippery slope’ argument, it is most compelling in real life – and death. There is something contagious about sin and evil. In 1986 Sir Mark Oliphant argued in the Handbook of the South Australian Voluntary Euthanasia Society (SAVES): ‘With the support of the medical profession the law could be changed sensibly to permit voluntary euthanasia under appropriate safeguards.’ Like just about everything in modern social discussions, the acronym is misleading, and the statement fallacious. Nobody is saved, and there are no appropriate safeguards. The bioethicist, Margaret Battin, confidently declared that the practice of assisted suicide and euthanasia in the Netherlands is ‘virtually abuse-free’.[28] In fact, the situation in Holland led Professor Theo Boer to swap sides on this issue, and to lament that ‘Once the genie is out of the bottle, it is not likely to ever go back in again.’[29]
C. Everett Koop said that euthanasia opens up opportunities for ‘almost inconceivable fraud, deception, and deceit.’[30] Euthanasia deaths go unreported or are disguised, and statistics, official or otherwise, are even more unreliable than usual. In March 2005 Terri Schiavo was legally starved to death in a Florida hospital. The next day her husband, Michael, claimed the insurance which would not have been his had he divorced her.[31] The ‘gains’ may be financial in many cases, or perhaps only in terms of convenience in others.
(f) Living consistently with a philosophy of death.
It will have effects on doctors, nurses, carers, and relatives. We wring our hands about youth suicide rates now, and it is received wisdom that kow-towing to the homosexual juggernaut will reduce those rates in LGBTI circles. One thing is certain: the legal recognition of euthanasia can only increase the attractiveness of a self-willed exit from life. There will be unease and angst, not dignity. Margaret Pabst Battin taught bioethics at the University of Utah, and was in favour of euthanasia, when her husband, Brooke Hopkins, collided with another cyclist on a blind curve, and was left seriously injured, ending out paralysed from the shoulders down. In the months that followed he would sometimes turn to his wife, whom he called Peggy, and announce: ‘I love my life.’ At other times he despaired of any quality of life, and wrote a ‘Final Letter’, which Peggy ignored. Robin Marantz Henig records of Peggy: ‘She still believes that, whenever possible, people have the right to choose when and how to die. But she now better understands how vast and terrifying that choice really is.’[32] This is not an uncommon experience as euthanasia advocates find it virtually impossible to live with their own philosophy of life and death.
An alternative and a warning
With modem palliative care, almost all severe pain should be able to be effectively relieved. This is not to say that all palliative care today is pro-life. Despite the law, euthanasia is being practised in one form or another. Those with dementia or with swallowing problems may be particularly at risk. Antibiotics may not be administered. There is a pro-euthanasia culture throughout the Western world. Yet, to cite Margaret Somerville:
We must react with compassion and care for people who are suffering from horrible diseases, but our reaction should be to kill the pain and suffering, not the person with the pain and suffering.[33]
Without the Christian ethic, the Utopian, almost Messianic, demand to eliminate all suffering will merge into the demand to eliminate all sufferers. With the Christian faith, the outlook is far different (see 1 Peter 1:3-6).
For the unbeliever, the lack of safeguards, despite all assurances that they exist, should override the issues of compassion and human autonomy. For the believer, there is the knowledge that we belong to God as our creator, redeemer and judge. Everything we do is important because God will judge everything we do; yet this life points to a greater life which is to come and which Christ has won for His people. With this eternal perspective, there is both righteousness and hope. Joni Eareckson Tada could repeat many times, as a quadriplegic: ‘I’d rather be in this chair, knowing Him, than on my feet without Him.’[34] Indeed, ‘The greatest good suffering can do for me is to increase my capacity for God.’ She adds, referring to John 7:38, ‘Not a rivulet, but a powerful river of peace.’[35]
[1] Fiona Stewart, ‘Denton has fallen for the doctors’ spin on the euthanasia debate’ in Sydney Morning Herald, November 9, 2015.
[2] Cited in Joni Eareckson Tada, When Is It Right to Die? Michigan: Zondervan, 1992, p.56.
[3] The Weekend Australian, September 24-25, 2016.
[4] The Australian, August 11, 2016. Denton especially targeted Tony Burke and Kevin Andrews, who organised the overturning in Federal Parliament of the 1995 Northern Territory laws in favour of assisted dying. Burke replied that Labor politicians Lindsay Tanner and Barry Jones were two atheists who also opposed euthanasia.
[5] cited in Neil M. Gorsuch, The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009,p.40.
[6] see Gregory Wolfe, Malcolm Muggeridge: A Biography, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1995, p.394.
[7] interview in Australian Presbyterian Winter 2017, p.6.
[8] Margaret Somerville, Review of Harvey Max Chochinov, Dignity Therapy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012 in News Weekly, June 3, 2017, pp.19-20.
[9] Margaret Somerville, Review of Harvey Max Chochinov, Dignity Therapy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012 in News Weekly, June 3, 2017, p.19.
[10] Neil M. Gorsuch, The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia, p.40.
[11] cited in Bill Muehlenberg, The Challenge of Euthanasia, Melbourne: CultureWatch Books, 2016, p.46.
[12] Neil M. Gorsuch, The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia, pp.107-110.
[13] e.g. The Australian, May 17, 2017.
[14] Katharine Q. Seelye and Jess Bidgood, ‘Guilty Verdict for Young Woman Who Urged Friend to Kill Himself’, New York Times, June 16, 2017.
[15] Leo Alexander, ‘Medical Science under Dictatorship’ in Ethics & Medicine, vol.3, no. 2, 1987, p.31.
[16] C. Everett Koop, The Right to Live, the Right to Die, p.115.
[17] Michael Burleigh, Death and Deliverance: ‘Euthanasia’ in Germany, 1900-1945, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
[18] J. A. Burgess, ‘The great slippery-slope argument’ in Journal of Medical
Ethics, vol. 19, 1993, p.171. Burgess owes much to Helga Kuhse and Peter Singer.
[19] J. A. Burgess, ‘The great slippery-slope argument’, p.171.
[20] Ian Brown and N. M. deS. Cameron (eds), Medicine in Crisis: A Christian Response, Edinburgh: Rutherford House Books, 1988, p.13.
[21] C. Everett Koop, The Right to Live, the Right to Die, p.117.
[22] see Muehlenberg, pp.34-38.
[23] Alexander Solzhenitsyn, We Never Make Mistakes, trans. by Paul Blackstock, London: Sphere Books, 1963, 1972, note p.87.
[24] J. Eareckson Tada, When Is It Right to Die? Michigan: Zondervan, 1992. Now
redone as The Life and Death Dilemma, 1995. Also, her autobiography entitled Joni
[25] cited in Muehlenberg, p.10.
[26] interview in Australian Presbyterian Winter 2017, p.5.
[27] Margaret Somerville, ‘Shutting up by shouting down’ in News Weekly, April 8, 2017, p.13.
[28] cited in Neil M. Gorsuch, The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009,p.103.
[29] Alex Schadenberg, ‘Dutch Professor Now Opposes Euthanasia, “I was Wrong, Terribly Wrong”, LifeNews.com/15 July 2014.
[30] C. Everett Koop, The Right to Live, the Right to Die, p.97.
[31] Mary and Robert Schindler with Suzanne Schindler Vitadamo and Bobby Schindler, A Life That Matters: The Legacy of Terri Schiavo – A Lesson for Us All, New York: Warner Books, 2006.
[32]Robin Marantz Henig, ‘A Life-or-Death Situation’ in New York Times, July 17, 2013.
[33] Margaret Somerville, ‘Shutting up by shouting down’ in News Weekly, April 8, 2017, p.13.
[34] Joni Eareckson Tada, Choices Changes, Mount Waverley: S. John Bacon, 1986, p.69. Joni quotes these words quite often in her talks to audiences.
[35] Joni Eareckson Tada and Steven Estes, When God Weeps, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1997, p.137.