I am instinctually in favour of assisted suicide. But the programme left me feeling uncomfortable. I have no time for the religious argument. And yet, I hesitate to fully sign up for the cause ”“ simply because I wanted to die once, and have been enormously relieved that I never did anything about it.
Admittedly I was suffering mental rather than physical illness ”“ in my case acute depression. I had been suffering agony for four years and saw no end in sight. But with hindsight it is plain to me that you can be very serious about your wanting to die, having taken all matters into account ”“ and most of those around me thought I was absolutely in my right mind ”“ then later discover that you very nearly made a literally fatal mistake….
The “thin edge of the wedge” argument is somewhat convincing. Once assisted suicide is established in law, how long before the patient and their relatives decide how serious the illness has to be before the decision is taken, rather than doctors?
Another name for “thin end of the wedge” is evolutionary development. Strange how those who reject one accept the other.
This isn’t really an argument so much as it is a public display of angst. He rubs his hands together furtively. He asks a list of questions on the assumption that merely asking questions is a morally significant act. He provides no answers other than to say “My, isn’t this a complex issue.” Then, having meandered around the moral universe for a short time, he resumes his original course – albeit perhaps on tip-toes.
The purpose of moral reasoning is not simply to ask questions, but to answer them. It’s not enough to simply list a bunch of difficulties and then submerge them in a grey fog of “Nothing black and white here.” It’s a tactic that is intended to blur the moral sense. Do we really want to say that there is “nothing black and white” about the relatives wanting Granny to off herself for her inheritance? Seems pretty ‘black and white’ to me.
The problem is that the author has no means of restricting this kind of self-interested behavior, and he knows it. He doesn’t want to surrender the option of suicide, but he also understands the reality of powerful actors seeking after the self-interested death of a third party. The primacy of autonomy confronts the reality of vulnerability. He reviews this conflict in a dramatic display of public hand-wringing, but in the end he remains where he started. Angst becomes for him the progressive sacrament of atonement. Having wrestled with the enemy in a profound struggle of moral ambiguity, he is now free to support assisted suicide and wish it well. That’s why the arguments he reviews are only “somewhat” convincing. They can’t actually convince or he would have to explain why he doesn’t change his mind.
carl
My sister-in-law is a board-certified palliative care physician. There are much better ways to do this.
Simplistic, maybe, but some of the questions that come to mind are
1. Is this morally right?
2. If so, is it the right time?
3. Is there a right time?
4. Who decides re: the right time, and is anyone’s judgment clouded by pain(mental, physical, or emotional) or mental illness?
If people want to have ethical debates about the subject; that’s fine, nothing wrong with that. But, television programs where people actually kill themselves are perverse and voyeuristic, without contributing much of anything to the debate except shock value and excess.