Friday, April 02, 2004
Euthanasia debate back in full force
The right to kill legally is back in full force in New Zealand following the trial of Wanganui woman Lesley Martin, who was found guilty this week of attempting to murder her mother. Martin, who is an avid euthanasia campaigner, says her terminally ill mother begged her to put an end to her life.
Martin's impassioned pleas following the jury verdict show the hugely emotional issues that surround the whole question of euthanasia. The trouble is, emotion often clouds the substance of what needs to be considered. And one emotional case is a very bad basis on which to change the law.
Ultimately, euthanasia is not about the right to die. It’s about the right to kill. That probably sounds incredibly harsh. But let's look behind the emotional pleas.
Euthanasia gives people the power to kill without scrutiny of the justice system. I could deliberately murder someone and call it euthanasia. In Oregon last year (where assisted suicide is legal), two-thirds of assisted suicides were carried out without a doctor present. Imagine the injustices possible there.
It also puts doctors under terrible pressure. On the one hand, they can be sued for malpractice if they don’t do absolutely everything to heal a patient. On the other, they would be encouraged to kill a patient. That is unbearable tension. Then again, some doctors don't need the encouragement. Only a month or two back, there came to light the case of German doctor Mechthild Bach, who is thought to have killed possibly as many as 1500 people, mostly without relatives knowledge. She insists that she was merely relieving the pain of patients who were dying anyway.
Laws are there to prevent abuse, and to protect vulnerable people from unscrupulous doctors and family members.
Euthanasia can lead to tremendous abuse, exploitation and erosion of care. If euthanasia is easy, why bother putting money and emotional effort into compassionate caring. Caring is hard work. Caring properly for people at the end of their life is also very expensive. Euthanasia puts tremendous pressure on medical authorities to promote the cheap option (just as women are being pressured to have an abortion when their babies are diagnosed with serious diseases).
Old people often ask for euthanasia because they don’t want to be a burden, not because they are necessarily in great pain. What they are really asking for is reassurance. Euthanasia in that case would reaffirm that no-one really cares that they continue living.
A lot of euthanasia discussion is around “quality of life�. Not pain. It is noteworthy that in Oregon, pain was not given as a reason by any of those who received legal lethal prescriptions in 2000.
Why are we so concerned to lower the suicide rate, particularly for young people, but equally determined to allow euthanasia? This seems to be an argument really about “who are worth it?� Young people are deserving of life, but old people are not.
Then there's the "slippery slope" problem. In a speech to the American Psychiatric Association, George Delury -- who portrays himself as a loving husband who "helped" his non-terminally ill wife die -- suggested that hopelessly ill people or people past age sixty should be able to apply for a license to die. He said that such a license should be granted without examination by doctors. Australia advocate Philip Nitschke last year advocated child euthanasia, if the child “will lead a life which is not worth living.� In at least two cases in Holland, the courts have given no punishment to physicians who have carried out euthanasia on children.
Wouldn’t euthanasia or assisted suicide only be available to people who are terminally ill? Problem is, there are many definitions for the word "terminal." For example, Jack Kevorkian who participated in the deaths of more than 130 people before he was convicted of murder said that a terminal illness was "any disease that curtails life even for a day."
Predictions of “terminal� are notoriously unreliable.
The idea that euthanasia and assisted suicide should only be practiced if a patient has a terminal condition has never been accepted in the Netherlands. Under both the previous guidelines and the new law in the Netherlands, unbearable suffering of either a physical or mental nature has been the judging factor. But note, it includes mental suffering. Who determines how much suffering is mental suffering?
But discussion in the Netherlands is going far beyond that. It now centers on whether assisted suicide should be available to elderly people who are healthy but "tired of life."
If euthanasia becomes just a “medical treatment�, it can be administered without the patient’s agreement, just like many other treatments today. In fact, in a 1995 study, Dutch doctors reported ending the lives of 948 patients without their request.
Finally in this brief discussion: the problem of pain. Virtually all pain can be eliminated or – in those rare cases where it can’t be totally eliminated – it can be reduced significantly if proper treatment is provided. It is a national and international scandal that so many people do not get adequate pain control. But it is not because it is not available. Killing is not the answer to that scandal. The solution is to make sure that people do get proper hospice care.
An excellent Q&A article looking at some of the difficult issues surrounding euthanasia can be found at this site.
The right to kill legally is back in full force in New Zealand following the trial of Wanganui woman Lesley Martin, who was found guilty this week of attempting to murder her mother. Martin, who is an avid euthanasia campaigner, says her terminally ill mother begged her to put an end to her life.
Martin's impassioned pleas following the jury verdict show the hugely emotional issues that surround the whole question of euthanasia. The trouble is, emotion often clouds the substance of what needs to be considered. And one emotional case is a very bad basis on which to change the law.
Ultimately, euthanasia is not about the right to die. It’s about the right to kill. That probably sounds incredibly harsh. But let's look behind the emotional pleas.
Euthanasia gives people the power to kill without scrutiny of the justice system. I could deliberately murder someone and call it euthanasia. In Oregon last year (where assisted suicide is legal), two-thirds of assisted suicides were carried out without a doctor present. Imagine the injustices possible there.
It also puts doctors under terrible pressure. On the one hand, they can be sued for malpractice if they don’t do absolutely everything to heal a patient. On the other, they would be encouraged to kill a patient. That is unbearable tension. Then again, some doctors don't need the encouragement. Only a month or two back, there came to light the case of German doctor Mechthild Bach, who is thought to have killed possibly as many as 1500 people, mostly without relatives knowledge. She insists that she was merely relieving the pain of patients who were dying anyway.
Laws are there to prevent abuse, and to protect vulnerable people from unscrupulous doctors and family members.
Euthanasia can lead to tremendous abuse, exploitation and erosion of care. If euthanasia is easy, why bother putting money and emotional effort into compassionate caring. Caring is hard work. Caring properly for people at the end of their life is also very expensive. Euthanasia puts tremendous pressure on medical authorities to promote the cheap option (just as women are being pressured to have an abortion when their babies are diagnosed with serious diseases).
Old people often ask for euthanasia because they don’t want to be a burden, not because they are necessarily in great pain. What they are really asking for is reassurance. Euthanasia in that case would reaffirm that no-one really cares that they continue living.
A lot of euthanasia discussion is around “quality of life�. Not pain. It is noteworthy that in Oregon, pain was not given as a reason by any of those who received legal lethal prescriptions in 2000.
Why are we so concerned to lower the suicide rate, particularly for young people, but equally determined to allow euthanasia? This seems to be an argument really about “who are worth it?� Young people are deserving of life, but old people are not.
Then there's the "slippery slope" problem. In a speech to the American Psychiatric Association, George Delury -- who portrays himself as a loving husband who "helped" his non-terminally ill wife die -- suggested that hopelessly ill people or people past age sixty should be able to apply for a license to die. He said that such a license should be granted without examination by doctors. Australia advocate Philip Nitschke last year advocated child euthanasia, if the child “will lead a life which is not worth living.� In at least two cases in Holland, the courts have given no punishment to physicians who have carried out euthanasia on children.
Wouldn’t euthanasia or assisted suicide only be available to people who are terminally ill? Problem is, there are many definitions for the word "terminal." For example, Jack Kevorkian who participated in the deaths of more than 130 people before he was convicted of murder said that a terminal illness was "any disease that curtails life even for a day."
Predictions of “terminal� are notoriously unreliable.
The idea that euthanasia and assisted suicide should only be practiced if a patient has a terminal condition has never been accepted in the Netherlands. Under both the previous guidelines and the new law in the Netherlands, unbearable suffering of either a physical or mental nature has been the judging factor. But note, it includes mental suffering. Who determines how much suffering is mental suffering?
But discussion in the Netherlands is going far beyond that. It now centers on whether assisted suicide should be available to elderly people who are healthy but "tired of life."
If euthanasia becomes just a “medical treatment�, it can be administered without the patient’s agreement, just like many other treatments today. In fact, in a 1995 study, Dutch doctors reported ending the lives of 948 patients without their request.
Finally in this brief discussion: the problem of pain. Virtually all pain can be eliminated or – in those rare cases where it can’t be totally eliminated – it can be reduced significantly if proper treatment is provided. It is a national and international scandal that so many people do not get adequate pain control. But it is not because it is not available. Killing is not the answer to that scandal. The solution is to make sure that people do get proper hospice care.
An excellent Q&A article looking at some of the difficult issues surrounding euthanasia can be found at this site.
