A Consistent Ethic for Life – Te Kahu-O-Te-Ora

  Dangers of euthanasia and assisted suicide Dr John Kleinsman A favourite uncle used to say, ‘Be careful what you wish for!’ It’s a reminder that things we desire often…

 

Dangers of euthanasia and assisted suicide

Dr John Kleinsman

A favourite uncle used to say, ‘Be careful what you wish for!’ It’s a reminder that things we desire often come with unforeseen and undesirable consequences. If there was ever an instance in which this applies it is in regard to euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Those who want the law to change believe the issue is fundamentally about ‘choice’.

Allowing those who want to choose when and how they die would not affect those who think otherwise, it is argued. Euthanasia/assisted suicide can seem acceptable, fair and safe when the focus is solely on individual ‘hard’ cases.

I am adamantly opposed to euthanasia and assisted suicide. As someone who heads up a Catholic Bioethics Centre, I am often accused of imposing my ‘religious’ choices on others. Actually, I don’t have a problem with people exercising choice.

In an ‘ideal’ world, a world of total empathy and inclusion, a world of equitable access to health care and free of elder abuse, I could live with people being given this choice. But we don’t live in such a world.

A robust, informed debate about euthanasia and assisted suicide needs to consider some interacting social factors that define our current New Zealand context: the rise of elder abuse; the increasing social isolation of the elderly; a growth in the overall proportion of elderly; greater pressure on families to provide care; smaller and more fragmented families; and increasing economic pressures on our health system.

The availability of state-sanctioned ‘mercy killing’ in this environment will inevitably create additional pathways for abuse and neglect. As one commentator bluntly stated, ‘I oppose introducing euthanasia in a toxic climate.’

There are also the threats euthanasia/assisted suicide would pose for quality end-of-life care, our trust in doctors, its potential impact on youth-suicide prevention and the inevitable extension to children and others incapable of giving consent.

Further, in the current ‘toxic climate’, a law change will reframe the way the sick, elderly or disabled see themselves and are seen by others.

As an experienced nurse recently wrote, ‘Do assisted-suicide supporters really expect doctors and nurses to assist in the suicide of one patient, then go care for a similar patient who wants to live, without this having an effect on our ethics or empathy? Do they realise this reduces the second patient’s will-to-live request to a mere personal whim – perhaps, ultimately, one that society will see as selfish and too costly?’

Expanding personal freedoms to include euthanasia or assisted suicide undermines the right to remain alive without having to justify one’s existence.

Research backs this up. Contrary to popular opinion, the main reasons people favour euthanasia relate to their experience of social isolation, fear of losing control and feelings of being a burden.

There has never been a more dangerous time in our country’s history to implement a law change.

An experienced palliative-care physician reassures me that these days no-one need die in physical pain. What we need is access to quality care in a society where everyone feels valued and included.

Good palliative does this, addressing a person’s existential suffering – emotional, psychological, spiritual and relational – as well as their physical suffering.

As hospital chaplain Fr David Orange recently noted, ‘The pro-euthanasia slogan is that people should be allowed to die with dignity, which suggests that they don’t. I’ve seen hundreds of people die…it’s just part and parcel of your life as a chaplain. And I would say in the time I’ve been a chaplain, which is about 35 years, I don’t think I can remember a case where people didn’t die with dignity.’

We must be honest about the unintended, long-term, negative consequences of euthanasia and assisted-suicide for both individuals and society.

Euthanasia and assisted suicide are unnecessary and, in the current toxic context, extremely dangerous.

Be careful what you wish for!

Dr John Kleinsman is Director of The NZ Catholic Bioethics Centre.