Between the Patient and God: Legal Euthanasia, Essay Example

Introduction

Society is inevitably conflicted when issues of terminally ill patients wishing to die arise. On one level, there is the virtually universal sense that life is sacred, and that no amount of suffering should be permitted to deliberately end what is, in the opinion of many people, a God-given gift. The very idea of euthanasia seems to frighten people, because it is difficult to conceive of a more drastic course of action. At the same time, there is an awareness that, when intense and constant pain is the reality, and the patient cannot reasonably hope for recovery, the morally correct act is to help the individual end the suffering. Debate then rages in the courts and in the culture as a whole, and the legality of euthanasia undergoes alternate acceptance and denial. Beneath all of this, however, is the critical element of the individual’s natural right to decide their own fate and accommodate their own needs with their own faith. No matter society’s obligation to protect its citizens, the core truth is that, when terminal illness is in place, no external, human force is entitled to pass judgment on that life. Euthanasia must be legalized because the patient who does not believe in God and the patient who does share the fundamental right to determine their own end, because any issue of morality or faith here exists strictly between the individual and their conscience.

Discussion

An important argument going to legalizing euthanasia for the terminally ill lies in how societies, and Western cultures in particular, have gradually changed their views regarding it. Not many decades ago, the idea of a patient being permitted to die was unthinkable, as it violated cultural norms. The violation was, and remains to an extent, all the greater because Western culture is largely based on Christian principles. Variations in faiths notwithstanding, there is a general acceptance in life as being provided by God; consequently, human action to intentionally end it, under any circumstances, has long provoked outrage. What occurs, however, is that an initial and heated controversy loses its early impact as time passes, further cases and arguments are made, and the society begins to consider the issue more rationally. This has then altered opinion, and law, regarding passive euthanasia. Today, many nations legally and socially accept passive euthanasia, in which the death of the patient occurs through the withholding of intrusive procedures in place as necessary to sustain life (Chin, Choi 24). Over time, then, there has been some recognition of the reality of the terminally ill, if of a kind allowing only for limited patient choice.

This gradual shift in acceptance of passive euthanasia, however, profoundly goes to exposing the flaws in resistance to any euthanasia in cases of terminal illness. From an ethical standpoint, it is unconscionable to determine that a passive permitting of death is all right and an active one is not, because the process going to the death is removed from the actual patient and illness. It is not right that one patient, enabled to die by choice by passive means, should be so enabled when another patient, equally in pain and equally denied any hope of recovery, merely requires direct intervention to end their life as they desire. Society, in plain terms, cannot have it both ways; either intense suffering and no hope of recovery are valid reasons entitling an individual to choose to end their life, or they are not. The processes cannot be allowed to decide the issue, simply because one seems to more “absolve” society from the responsibility of deciding. Such an approach then clearly reveals both how culture is fearful of euthanasia, and how it unethically seeks a moral middle ground that is untenable. It ignore a reality in place in actual homicide law, in fact; to passively allow a person to die is criminal because it is an act of omission committed when other action is possible (Evans 64). Passive euthanasia, then, or the illegality of active, reflects a profound legal and social hypocrisy in place.

Further undermining the acceptance of only passive euthanasia is the reality of the factors going into all such decisions. There is no escaping the fact that, even as the subject causes spiritual and psychological distress to the family members and the society as a whole, pragmatic considerations very much go to the issue. Money, plainly, is a problem: “Fighting to prolong life has become an economically undesirable activity in…many advanced countries” (Chin, Choi 24).

Keeping a patient alive is both increasingly possible through technologies and more costly because of the possibility, and families and facilities alike are then faced with enormous and ongoing expenses. As with passive euthanasia being perceived as less morally problematic, there is again here a factor removed completely from the patient’s being and case. An issue having nothing to do with the patient’s suffering or desire to die is permitted to exercise impact and, as the issue is economic, it is all the more distanced from the core morality of the subject. Once again, as society allows cost considerations to influence euthanasia decisions, it is seeking to deny its responsibility as it simultaneously disregards the primary need to be addressed.

It is arguable that the answer lies in an utter denial of any euthanasia, then. This in place, society then reflects a consistent ideology unfair to none, as it also adheres to the Christian and life-affirming foundations of the cultures. No matter one’s actual degree of faith or even lack thereof, it is irrefutable that human life is universally esteemed beyond anything else, and euthanasia translates to a dismissal of what is likely the most significant societal belief. Linked to this is the general belief that suffering and hopelessness, while inherently disturbing to all, are not matters subject to human interference. Many simply hold to God as dictating human life in various ways, and that it is outrageous for any end of life to be actively attained, except in cases of survival and self-defense, as in war and crime. Many of the Jewish faith particularly object to any euthanasia, citing Ecclesiastes as the Biblical injunction that no man has authority over the day of death (Dowbiggin 12). Pain is to be pitied and relieved as possible, but deciding death is beyond any human right because life itself is universally regarded as too precious to be deliberately ended.

If such a view is understandable or even admirable, it nonetheless ignores precepts vital to both social structures and religious faith; namely, that the relationship between the individual and God is inviolate, just as the society exists to protect the individual’s right to autonomy over their own life. The nature of faith is inherently personal, no matter the injunctions of particular religions. If a person sins, and even if, as in Catholicism, that sin may be absolved through a confessor, the reality remains that it is the individual’s choice in all respects. Both sin and repentance derive from the person’s relationship with God, and no external agent may do more than influence or assist. This must apply, then, to even the extreme choice to end life. If the person holds to God, it is not within the purview of any other to interfere with how the person chooses to act in regard to this factor. The societal aspect comes into play when converse situations are examined, specifically going to murder. The law and the society may punish the offense of taking life, but they are not empowered in any way to determine or rectify how this act affects the individual in the eyes of God. Human absolution, again, may be granted, but that, as with euthanasia, relies on the individual’s decision to set it in motion.

Conclusion

There is no escaping that laws and social views largely rely on ethical ideologies usually based to some extent on widespread religious beliefs. In the West, certainly, Christianity infuses the law. This inevitably fuels debate regarding euthanasia, simply because most spirituality is too deeply distressed by the idea of the choice to end life to assess it rationally. Unfortunately, it assesses all the same, particularly as realities of cost very much determine policy in this regard. What ultimately matters, however, and in both faith-based and strictly social terms, is that the illegality of active euthanasia denies the most fundamental human rights of all: to decide one’s own fate and to conduct one’s relationship with God as seen fit by the individual. Euthanasia must be legalized because the patient who does not believe in God and the patient who does share the inviolable right to determine their own end, and also because any issue of faith here exists strictly between the individual and their conscience, or their God.

Works Cited

Chin, A., & Choi, A. Law, Social Sciences, and Public Policy: Towards a Unified Framework. Singapore: NSU Press, 1998. Print.

Dowbiggin, I. A Concise History of Euthanasia: Life, Death, God, and Medicine. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007. Print.

Evans, A. R. Is God Still at the Bedside?: The Medical, Ethical, and Pastoral Issues of Death and Dying. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdman’s Publishing, 2010. Print.