Should we allow euthanasia?

(This post courtesy of guest moderator Elah Lanis and treasurer Nick Krug)

· Does euthanasia threaten the sanctity of life?
· Do people deserve the right to die?
· If allowed, how should such a policy function?
· What’s so bad about death, anyway?

Starting off with the basics, we talked about why we see death as bad. Several argued that the deprivation of life is the single biggest factor. But there were questions about the ability to compare nonexistence to the spectrum of happiness that we experience in life. (How can you compare nonexistence to different states of experience?) There was also the question of why people are afraid of nonexistence after death but don’t seem to mind the fact that they didn’t exist before birth.

Discussion next turned to questions surrounding an individual’s choice to commit suicide. There were arguments on both sides of the question of whether an individual can ever rationally choose to commit suicide. Should they always hope for the possibility of remission, or can they take action based on probabilities? Since people often change their minds, can we ever trust an individual’s current judgment on the situation, or do we need to try to predict how they will feel later on? (I.e. if they really want to commit suicide now, but we think they may thank us for stopping them from doing so in six months.) Should we honor living wills? Nick argued that respect for the sanctity of life would prevent anyone from taking active measures to end a life. Danie Monahan believed that we should always prevent individuals from committing suicide.

Others debated the existence of a significant moral difference between active and passive euthanasia, that is, whether or not it matters if the doctor withholds food or gives the patient cyanide. Working from Neil’s case of a patient with agonizing six months to live, to Joe Carlsmith’s example of a depressed but sane quadriplegic, the group worked out some of the differences that might exist in individual cases, and where passive and even active euthanasia might be acceptable.

There was also discussion of the costs involved: should individuals be allowed to decide to commit suicide because they want to save money for their families? Economic concerns are often an issue in a society’s decision to accept or reject a policy, and euthanasia is no exception. There seemed to be a general consensus that while such decisions might make us uncomfortable, doctors need to evaluate how to best invest their time and resources, which might often include the choice to help a patient with a great deal of potential instead of a patient with a short time left to live.

Olga questioned the importance the group placed on individual choice, asking why we didn’t put more emphasis on the families’ opinions in such matters. Since families are the ones left afterwards, shouldn’t they have a significant say in all this? While acknowledging the slight awkwardness of such a statement, some argued that since the body no longer has much of an experience, the family can do what it likes with it.

Near the end of our discussion, support rallied for the opinion that no one suffering from even a very painful illness should be allowed to commit suicide or be euthanized if there were significant hope for recovery. The example we used was the 15-year-old whose family's quality of life would be significantly degraded in paying for his treatment.