It is (or was) winter in Windsor,
Ontario and I’m reminded of the beauty of the cold season, as fleeting as it is
in this area of Canada. I love the way the whiteness of snow covers up the
tragic pavement of the city and reflects the luminosity of streetlights. I love
how one can find an open patch of ice and skate on it (add a puck and a stick
and you’ve found bliss). It’s a beautiful season few appreciate, but it is well
known as a dead season, a time in the
Earth’s cycle where things die and hibernate and growth ceases. Winter is known
as a time of sleep and darkness from shorter days. The darkness and deathly
reality of this time brings into present thought that it was not too long ago, last
winter, on February 6th, 2015, that the Canadian Supreme Court
removed its ban on Physician Assisted Suicide (PAS) nationwide and so yielded
to what’s been termed the culture of death [1][2].
Next
to abortion, euthanasia is arguably the bioethical debate of our time. Its
popularity is booming. It’s gaining momentum in the headlines. The topic of
assisted dying recently received limelight thanks to the emotional conundrum of
one Brittany Maynard in the weeks and months preceding her willed death on
November 1st, 2014. Some may even remember Dr. Jack Kevorkian. Fresh
fires have since sprung from curious minds with diverse opinions ablaze. I’ve now
had to ask myself what my stand is on this issue. Pushed by tall figures, past
and present, I’m unable to idly observe.
No matter which
religious or philosophical perspective one takes, one should recognize that euthanasia
is already taking its toll on lives. Its partial legality in the US, from the
Death with Dignity acts in certain states, has led to hundreds of deaths [3].
In 2013 in Belgium, 1800 people died through right-to-die laws (it’s now legal
there for terminally ill children and barely restricted to mentally ill
adults) [4][5][6]. Over 4000 people opted
out in 2013 in the Netherlands alone [7]. The numbers globally, and nearer
to home, are stacking. If there is a right or wrong on the matter of euthanasia,
it is imperative that today’s culture becomes informed and reformed.
Formation of My Anti-Death Thoughts
I, a Christian,
believe in the absolute goodness of God – the Moral Argument and the witness of
Biblical scripture testify to this – which leads me to some basic but important
conclusions. From the belief in God, I believe that there is an absolute,
objective morality which exists independently of human will. I also believe
that the Judeo-Christian God exists as the referential standard for this
morality. Therefore, God decides the rightness of action, not us. Hence, no
matter the emotional pull there is towards any position, pro-life or
pro-choice, there is a right position which we do not determine but can accept
as truth and act out upon (which would be the loving thing to do). Jesus Christ
himself was about love and loving others, but asserted that love is predicated
on truth and must, by definition, act from truth. We must, as Christ’s
followers, remain attentive to the suffering of others while staying consistent
with what is true. This calls for theological assertion with similar diligence as
one’s empathetic remorse.
To be clear, no
easy response to the issue of euthanasia comes to mind. For the Christian, I
feel the best place to start is to remind oneself of the Biblical conception of
humanity, truths regarding pain, and accepted doctrine relating to life’s
purpose. Following this train of thought, one can then proceed into a more
philosophical discussion to appeal to the non-religious audience. Delving into
each subject, I believe one will come to the realization, as I have, that euthanasia
is absolutely immoral and should be criticized in public forums.
We, Christians,
understand that human value, Biblically speaking, is intrinsic. It’s not
variable. It’s constant. It’s not dependent on the material summation of the
person or the net worth of their assets or the subjective quality of their
experience. Human value doesn’t shift with the fluctuation of happiness over
the time-measure of life and it doesn’t change with the aggregate merit of the
person’s actions. Human value is equated quite simply (and beautifully) with
human existence. This is understood when one reads Genesis 1:26-27, Psalm
139:13-14, Matthew 6:25-34, 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 and Ephesians 2:8-9. If we
look over such passages of scripture, we read that we are “made in God’s image”
(imago Dei), we are “fearfully and wonderfully made” and that God’s affection
for his people is not a conditional one. We matter to Him regardless of
circumstance or our behavior. Furthermore, we read a passage like Romans 8
which boasts such powerful clarity in terms of God’s faithfulness to the
individual. Paul, the author of this letter, in the text, considers all
possible setbacks a person can experience—loss, pain and even death. His
conclusion is that nothing can separate us from God’s love. Regardless of these
things, hope remains. If we look further into Paul’s teaching, as in his
letters to the Philippians and Timothy, he continually exhorts the Church at
large as well as the Christian individual to persist in faith through life no
matter which battle may arise.
If euthanasia, and
PAS by extension, be defined as the killing of a person with motive to end the
person’s suffering, then euthanasia is unjustified according to scripture. For
suffering is to be expected as a necessary, albeit temporary, aspect of life in
today’s age until the return of Christ. Recognizing that pain, from a Christian
worldview, does not tarnish the value of the person’s life nor rob them of
their purpose, there really can’t be a logically coherent, conscientious
scriptural defense of euthanasia.
Now taking another
approach to the problem, if we examine the topic from a philosophical
perspective, proponents of right-to-die laws, or so-called “Death with Dignity”,
are still with questions to answer.
There is foremost
the concern over the subjective, relativistic underpinning for pro-euthanasia
arguments. Take as an example the argument that a person suffers so much pain
that to prolong their life would be undignified; therefore “mercy killing”
would be the morally good action. The chronological variant of this argument is
that the death of the person is so likely and so near that it would be better
to die sooner than to prolong the life in vain, or to at least give this option
to the dying person. In response to these statements, I ask, How much pain is
required to justify “mercy killing”? What type of pain? At what stage in a
person’s life? How imminent and probable must the person’s death be? Questions
like these uncover the obvious truth that pain is a spectrum, as is time with
respect to death, which makes it quite difficult (rather impossible) to
objectively draw a moral line in the sand – How much pain is too much? At what
time is suicide appropriate? What it really comes down to is granting people
the permission and the means to take their own life, or the life of another,
because we want to out of pity. This is called a slippery slope, and the
effects of such are already being seen in places like Belgium where people have
sought PAS on the basis of depression and mental illness, alone, and not just
suffering from physical disease. It’s hard to see what will stop a nation, if
they grant PAS to any, from granting PAS to all as a basic human right. It’s then
even harder to see right-to-die laws as anything but a Trojan horse erupting
from within an army of pathos-injected, bad arguments to the death of many.
Other defenses
tend to rely heavily on utilitarian terms. For example, allowing PAS as an
option may save on expenses required to futilely keep the patient alive. These
types of arguments not only disturb me but only self-evidence the absurdity of
utilitarianism as a moral philosophy. Can values of good and evil be reduced to
actuarial science or mere economics? Can they be founded purely on a
naturalistic worldview? If one worshipped the individual, perhaps, or rather
the individual’s happiness. (But what or who made happiness the objective
pinnacle of existence?) Sure, one can extrapolate the Happiness Principle to
the concept of the collective good by maximizing happiness and minimizing suffering
for all, but the problematic questions for the utilitarian persist. To me, the
utilitarian defenses convey an entirely shallow if not a vacuous understanding
of goodness and can offer no true meaning to the suffering individual other
than to rid themselves of the illusion of meaning. If good and evil be a
scoreboard hanging over the head of the human race, then it becomes clear that
morality is but a sport whose rules are mind-dependent, variable, and
ironically incalculable.
It shouldn’t
surprise anyone, then, when I say that ‘dignity’, from a secular utilitarian
perspective, is a paradoxical and confusing notion. However, it comes up again
and again in the debates I’ve seen, heard and participated in (look again at
the argument I begin with two paragraphs up). If God isn’t real (or if we
simply just remove God from consideration) in the moral conversation, then the
conversation becomes subjective. If no objective morality exists, then, it
follows that no true definition of good and evil exists. How then do we define
dignity? The dictionary defines dignity as worthy of respect and honor, but
what is respectable and honorable in an amoral, or subjectively moral, world?
So the question of dignity is without answer and the argument from dignity
meaningless. The irony of it all is that to argue that dying in suffering is
undignified (pro-euthanasia) is to assert that, yes, there is such a thing as
dignity which is to assert there is a real moral fabric to our existence. One
can only come to this conclusion within a theistic framework and it’s this
framework which argues that human dignity is not in a painless existence but in
an existence alone.
With all of this
being said, it is still very much important to remember that those who suffer
immensely and approach death are not lost in God’s peripheral. Sometimes an
argument against euthanasia can seem like dooming the individual to a cold,
lonely termination where God just stands by and watches the unfolding, like a
Cosmic Sadist (read C.S. Lewis’ A Grief
Observed). The truth is that the experience of suffering is not reducible
to abstractions. Where mere theological thought and tangible providence meet is
in the Gospel according to the Christian faith. Only in the Gospel can a true
remedy for meaninglessness and joylessness be found. If one be a Christian, the
effectiveness and love of one’s assertions hinges on whether it all can be
brought back to the sufficient provision of Christ in his death and
resurrection. To know that a God would suffer for one as absolution for sin,
propitiation for God’s wrath is to have a hope that endures pain and death. The
Gospel is the knowledge of having life purposefully and eternally.
The reasons for
opposing the pro-euthanasia movement seem fairly evident to me. My hope isn’t
to bring further pain to those nearing death or having had an experience with
euthanasia. The intention of this argument is to convey what I believe to be a
relevant truth, unpopular and scarcely considered, that it may prevent further
loss of life, meaning and hope.
Declaration On Euthanasia And
Assisted Suicide: http://www.euthanasiadeclaration.ca/declaration/
Sources:
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