The end of suffering?

Last night I attended the 8^th Annual Great Debate in Boulder—sponsored by the Aquinas Institute for Catholic Thought—discussing physician-assisted suicide and whether it should be legalized in the United States. It proved an incredibly relevant topic given House Bill 1135 which will be brought before the Colorado legislature tomorrow. It’s also fresh in everyone’s minds given the recent celebrity of Brittany Maynard.

One thing that stood out from the debate last night was that in order to truly debate this topic, we must share a frame of reference, a vocabulary of morality and ethics, and in a sense, we have to agree on a certain worldview. For example, if you think that a person should be able to do whatever they want with their body regardless of the consequences, and that the law exists to protect that premise, then we have nothing to debate. For the rest of you, I offer the following considerations. (Sorry, they are not brief).

The basic premise of those in favor of physician-assisted suicide (PAS), reinforced by Dr. Michael Tooley’s arguments last night, seems to be that there are certain cases in which death is preferable to life, in which someone is “better off dead” (Dr. Tooley’s words), in which bringing about one’s death is a “benefit rather than a harm” (again, his words). Dr. Tooley asserted that it is up to the dying person to decide what that cutoff is. He specifically supported PAS in cases of extreme physical pain and suffering (and notably rejected it in cases of depression, temporary or sudden disability, or emotional suffering…hmmm).

This viewpoint has arisen, argued Wesley Smith (the other participant), from a shift in philosophy. Historically, from Plato to Descartes, virtue was regarded as the primary human good, primarily the virtues of knowledge and wisdom. But as advances in science gave humanity control over the natural world, Descartes directed his efforts towards “the conservation of health, which is without doubt the primary good and the foundation of all other goods of this life.” That’s a huge paradigm shift, and if you take it to its logical conclusion, humanity has a right, even an obligation to advance science in order to conserve “health”, at the expense of virtue or any other good.

Given today’s aversion to physical and emotional suffering, and our narrowed definition of health as “the absence of disease” rather than “complete physical, mental and social well-being”, it might make sense that we can and should use science to help us avoid suffering at all costs. To the extreme conclusion, as Smith put it last night, that “killing is an acceptable response to human suffering.”

I would argue that Descartes was wrong, or at least that we have warped his philosophy to an unsatisfactory conclusion. If health is the be-all-end-all, then is life really worth living? Are healthy people really the happiest, the most successful, the most virtuous? Have they truly achieved the greatest good? And if so, then what worth do unhealthy people have? It’s not a far leap to discount the disabled, the sick, the suffering as worthless. And yet, we know that’s not true. Consider Stephen Hawking, Helen Keller, FDR, who knew that they were more than their health, or lack thereof.

Yes, an appropriate response to suffering is to try to alleviate the suffering, but I think we have to realize that the absence of (especially physical) suffering is not the greatest good, to be achieved at all costs. Human life has dignity and purpose in the midst of suffering, and to let someone believe that a certain amount of suffering makes them “better off dead” is, as Smith said, abandonment.

Studies have shown that people requesting PAS primarily are afraid. Afraid of becoming a burden, afraid of losing control, of losing their dignity, afraid of not being able to do things for themselves. I think ultimately, they are afraid of losing their identity, their voice. By telling them they are better off gone, aren’t we agreeing with them? Shouldn’t we be reinforcing their worth, helping them achieve a measure of autonomy, allowing them to have a purpose, a place in a community?

This doesn’t even get into the slippery slope of deciding that there are certain populations who are “killable”, or the dangers of not treating mental illness appropriately, or the financial pressures of euthanizing over continuing medical treatment. It doesn’t get in to the dilemma of a physician who has taken an oath to “do no harm” being asked to kill. And it certainly doesn’t broach the argument that life is a gift from God and isn’t ours to take. I hope instead that by questioning the very foundation that suffering is an evil to be avoided and that killing is an acceptable answer to that suffering, that I can reach a broader audience, and help people think a little more critically about where our society is headed.

Also, please visit http://www.cocatholicconference.org/voter-voice/?vvsrc=%2fAddress to find your state representative and tell them we should not legalize physician-assisted suicide.