Euthanasia, Voluntary and Otherwise

Hopefully, this won’t get me too much hate mail.

I don’t intend to defend or put down any particular position, simply to point out that nobody really owns a righteous corner on this subject, and we all need to ponder it at a very personal level. At the literal end of the day, these are profound choices for you and for your loved ones.

My thinking here was triggered by a recent Atlantic Magazine article on assisted dying in Canada, a rather haughty and condescending piece of work, and as most such articles on dicey topics, smug, over the top, preachy, and entirely without nuance. But such is journalism by preppies.

Let’s start with one case of self-euthanasia where there seems to be little argument.

Anyone who has ever watched a spy movie or read a story of “behind the lines” warfare knows that most undercover operatives carry cyanide capsules which they will crush between their teeth in the event of inescapable capture. They do so for two perfectly supportable reasons: first, to allow the mercy of a quick death before torture, second, to allow the agent to exit without giving away secrets under terrible duress. In other words, both the spy and the state have a vested interest in a quick death. I’ve yet to read an article or a paper criticising this.

None of us feel good about the bad guys going at our spies with blowtorches and electric prods, and few of us doubt that we would ourselves bite the glass in such circumstances. We look on these scenarios as casualties of war, or “giving your life for your country”. Both of those are true, but it’s also unarguably state-enabled euthanasia.

Also interestingly enough, back in more conservative times, it was a custom in many militaries that if an officer was put in military prison in shameful circumstances such as having been charged with treason or murder, a brother officer would make a visit and “forget” that he had left his side arm on a table with a single bullet. The accused was expected to “do the right thing”. There was no moral outrage or outcry.

Much of the noise against medical assistance in dying (“MAID”) comes from a side of the spectrum which mounts mostly personal religious arguments, citing holy writ of their choice. This is often also the fault line between pro- and anti-abortion, and pro- and anti-capital punishment.

The difficulty with invoking religion as a final answer to these issues is that it puts one, at the exact same time, on opposites sides of the same choice: taking a life which has no say in the matter. Many who see abortion as an impermissible taking of a life won’t flinch to pull the hangman’s lever. And vice versa. Can you have it both ways?

Citing the Bible (or the Code of Hammurabi, the Laws of Manu, the Koran, or whatever) in support of such modern conundra as capital punishment also has its problems with consistency, because the same texts also command stoning to death for petty thievery, false witness, and adultery. As Jesus told us plainly in the New Testatment, the strict application of these rules wouldn’t leave many of us alive. Again, we choose to pick and choose.

Like every such emotionally charged social issue, there are simply no snappy answers. As with the great morality and “natural law” questions debated by first year law students, there are no “correct answers” for everyone, just working choices which are the least bad for the most people in the long run. The “overcrowded lifeboat” debates have no winners.

If your personal principles are such that you’re willing to suffer interminably and agonizingly, I admire your courage. Just let your loved ones know your convictions in advance.

But if you are prepared to reach for the off switch when things get too much, that too should not come as a surprise to them.

All of us hope to die of very old age, gently in our beds, and surrounded by loved ones. Sadly, we rarely get much choice in our manner of exit, and it’s important to grapple with these issues, at a personal and family level, long before we and our loved ones are forced to make hard choices in hard circumstances.