Voluntary euthanasia is in the news again.
At last week’s state election health forum, organised by The Sydney Morning Herald, we heard how 61-year-old Loredana Alessio-Mulhall, suffering from MS, intends flying to the Netherlands to end her life. This, of course, is illegal in Australia. Indeed, next month a man named David Mathers goes on trial in Sydney for the alleged murder of an old, sick friend. I cannot discuss that case for legal reasons, but there are a few facts about voluntary euthanasia worth putting on the record.
More than 80 per cent of Australians in opinion polls say they’d like to see voluntary euthanasia legalised. This issue is nearly unique because a majority of politicians, normally so keen to follow public opinion, refuse to change the law. One of the biggest arguments they use is that to do so would lead to a “slippery slope”. {But is the argument valid?]
No, “voluntary” euthanasia will not lead to a slippery slope. It will propel you off the edge of a high, sheer cliff before you are either aware or can stop yourself. And once off a cliff’s edge, there is nothing you can grab to slow or stop your fall.
It’s not a slippery slope — it’s a Cliff. Once you go over it, there is no way to stop.
Look at Holland. People are afraid to go to the hospital because patients have been given lethal injections by physicians who felt they needed the bed for someone else. I am not exaggerating — it happens.
Do either of you know anyone who has considered voluntary euthanasia?
How does “voluntary euthanasia” differ from a person committing suicide?
When the depressed person who can see ‘no light at the end of the tunnel’ commits suicide, is that voluntary euthansia?
#4 The article does not define the phrase but the dictionary definition indicates that “euthanize” refers to someone killing an animal or person to spare them pain. “Voluntary euthanasia” would mean that one person kills another with their consent so it would not be suicide technically.
It is perhaps worth considering the statements by Pius XII on this matter. What is being considered is the primary motive. Is one giving a drug to cause death (a moral wrong) or giving a drug to alleviate pain that will cause death? I would not want to be in a position to make such a judgement; but they are made each day.
“At this point it is fitting to recall a declaration by Pius XII, which retains its full force; in answer to a group of doctors who had put the question: “Is the suppression of pain and consciousness by the use of narcotics … permitted by religion and morality to the doctor and the patient (even at the approach of death and if one foresees that the use of narcotics will shorten life)?” the Pope said: “If no other means exist, and if, in the given circumstances, this does not prevent the carrying out of other religious and moral duties: Yes.”[5] In this case, of course, death is in no way intended or sought, even if the risk of it is reasonably taken; the intention is simply to relieve pain effectively, using for this purpose painkillers available to medicine. However, painkillers that cause unconsciousness need special consideration. For a person not only has to be able to satisfy his or her moral duties and family obligations; he or she also has to prepare himself or herself with full consciousness for meeting Christ. Thus Pius XII warns: “It is not right to deprive the dying person of consciousness without a serious reason.”[6]”
If anyone refuses to believe there is a “slippery slope” either they are fools or totally ignorant of the history of the 20th Century.
The Holocaust didn’t come from nowhere in 1940’s Germany . The groundwork was laid for it in 1930’s Germany as the culture more and more accepted the idea of “life unworthy of life” starting with the euthanasia of retarded people.
#7 Of course there is a “slippery slope” it is just a matter of how we draw the legal line. Most US states have options for “Do Not Resuscitate” (DNR) orders. Some people feel that people should be given every possible means of support to maximize a person’s heart beats. In this view, the individual’s desire to control how their life draws to a close is irrelevant. I think most people take a moderate view. One of the best articulated “moderate” views is from Hospice. Hospice has some interesting positions on when CPR is or is not appropriate and when to discontinue IV feeding or fluids.
Administering medications or allowing someone to self administer medications that accelerate the death process is a step I would be unwilling to take but I can imagine a very few extreme scenarios where it might be the compassionate thing to do.
What I think I hear you saying is there are no legal safeguards that can prevent abuse of this kind of legal provision. If that is the case then does the law make any difference at all? Do you believe that such laws would make it too ambiguous to differentiate between murder and voluntary euthanasia? Or are you opposed to voluntary euthanasia in principal? What about people self administering barbiturates?
What doesn’t get much attention is the fact that many elderly or chronically ill people take more pain medication than indicated or an assortment of their prescriptions knowing that death may be hastened or immediate.
When a medical practitioner acknowledges that morphine, for instance, can fatally depress respiration and doesn’t probe into why the patient or caregiver is asking about that effect and dosages, is this a form of euthanasia? If so, it happens quite often, if studies are to be believed.