FREE TO KILL (via Mike Daley):

Euthanasia in Europe: a morbid debate (Kevin Yuill, November 2003, Spiked)

The death of 22-year-old Vincent Humbert - after his mother administered an overdose of sedatives in his intravenous drip on the third anniversary of the car crash that left her son a quadriplegic - created a storm of controversy in France, and across Europe. [...]

At first glance, Vincent Humbert's is a tragic case; all those involved deserve our sympathy. The response of the French authorities has been sympathetic, though they remain opposed to changing the law. French health minister Jean-François Mattei refused to countenance legislation, fearing that no amount of legislation can resolve what will always remain 'a problem of conscience'. However, the openness to a change in the law across Europe is the consequence of an uncritical attitude that needs to be analysed - and challenged.

Firstly, since when were the words of a depressed young man taken as extraordinary wisdom? Vincent Humbert no doubt had much more reason to be depressed than others - but, as with most cases of assisted suicide or passive euthanasia, depression, not illness or pain, lay at the basis of his determination to die. The fact that he was able to write a well-read book gives some indication of the usefulness of whatever sliver of life remained in him. He might have - with much help - adjusted to this existence. Various studies suggest that pain is almost never the primary reason for requests for assisted suicide. It was certainly an afterthought with Humbert, according to his book. [...]

At the heart of this removal of the taboo against suicide is a crisis of meaning. In the past, organised religion made sense of life and death, of the travails we faced, and provided a ritualised exit when our time was up. Assisted suicide activists wish to legitimate their own myopic hopelessness, their own disenchantment with the future. They do not simply seek to die quietly but to spread their disenchantment with all human life and their gospel of meaninglessness and futility.

We are being asked to give the proverbial man on the bridge a push rather than to search for the real source of his torment. We should not belittle human suffering - but let's remember that death is the antithesis of human life, not a potential solution for its problems.

Death advocates like to cast their argument as a necessary advancement of freedom--allowing each of us to choose the time, place, and means of our own death. The problem is that no healthy person can accurately judge how unhealthy they'll have to get in the future before they'll want to be dead and profoundly unhealthy folk are understandably depressed, at least at first, so their judgments, especially immediate judgments, should not be trusted. (Christopher Reeve likely woke up in a hospital wishing he were dead, but fights tenaciously now to improve his own life and those of others. Who among us would say his life is less worthwhile than our own?) the contradictions in the mercy killer's position become most obvious when the question turns to whether a healthy person who's just lost his job is entitled to assistance when he decides to commit suicide: if, yes, then you've truly abdicated any responsibility to help a person even when their condition (depression) is eminently treatable and not terminal; if, no, because their condition isn't grim enough, then you've denied the very freedom of the individual you claimed to be championing and you set yourself up as judge of the quality of peoples' lives--as well as the executioner.

So, we see that the main questions implicated here, somewhat surprisingly, don't involve the individual who we imagine wants to die. Instead, they involve we who want to kill him and the kind of society we'll have once we start.

MORE:
The Guardian: In 1998, Terri Schiavo's first guardian ad litem filed a report on her case. It makes for interesting reading today. (Wesley J. Smith, 11/04/2003, Weekly Standard)

Considering that [guardian--Richard L. Pearse Jr.]'s report was written long before the Schiavo case became an international cause celebre, it makes interesting reading. The guardian ad litem supported Schiavo's position on some points and the Schindlers on others. [...]

*As of April 4, 1998, Terri's trust fund held $713,828.85. "Thus," wrote Pearse, "Mr. Schiavo will realize a substantial and fairly immediate financial gain if his application for withdrawal of life support [tube-supplied food and water] is granted." (Schiavo now claims that there is only $50,000 left in the account, the bulk of the money having gone to pay his attorneys.)

*At the time of the report, only Schiavo claimed that Terri would not wish to be kept alive if severely incapacitated. "However," Pearse opined, "his credibility is necessarily adversely affected by the obvious financial benefit to him of being the ward's sole heir at law in
the event of her death while still married to him. Her death also permits him to get on with his own life." (Subsequent to the filing of the report, and perhaps in response to it, Schiavo's brother and sister-in-law came forward to claim Terri made similar statements in their presence. In this regard it is worth noting that no member of Terri's family, or any of her friends, recall her ever making any such statements to them.)

*Pearse concluded, "Given the inherent problems already mentioned, together with the fact that the ward has been maintained the life support measures sought to be withdrawn for the past 8 years, it is the recommendation of the guardian ad litem that the petition for removal be denied."

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 6, 2003 7:53 PM