"Quarterly Retort" was a regular feature in Free To Go, the cooperatively-produced newsletter of Canada's anglophone right-to-die
groups, from issue 4:4 (Oct.-Dec.2002) till issue 10.4 (Oct.-Dec.2008, the final issue).
(Issue 10:4, Oct.-Dec. 2008)
They Say:
The slippery slope must be avoided. If we allow aid in dying for some people in some situations, we will end up allowing it for more people, in different situations. "You cannot draw a line."
We Reply:
"Drawing a line" is precisely what laws and regulations often do. Age of majority, blood alcohol levels, and many other variables have been addressed. If we come to feel that the initial placement of the line was wrong (as suffragettes felt about the line concerning gender and voting rights) we change it. When a restriction of aid in dying (e.g. to the terminally ill) is seen to be unfair, it will be removed. The slope is upward, from unjust to just.
(Issue 10:3, Jul.-Sep. 2008)
Timothy Taylor Thinks:
People planning suicide are always doubtful about the rightness of their choice. A person who is with them when they act is providing the endorsement or legitimization they crave, thereby assisting the suicide, which is illegal.
(Summary/paraphrase of Globe and Mail article on July 14, 2008)
We Suggest:
Taylor needs to meet some real live members of right-to-die groups. He would find that although they may well be planning to manage their exit, they are a far cry from the spineless vacillating creatures he imagines. They may want company when they die, but they would not be using the companion(s) to validate their decision.
(Issue 10:2, Apr.-Jun. 2008)
They Say:
Maybe suicide can sometimes be the right and sensible thing to do, but helping someone with it is never right. The law is correct in saying that people must accomplish it without assistance.
We Reply:
The law is foolish, not correct, in saying that it is always wrong to help someone with an act that can be right. The foolishness may have come about in this way:
When legislators decriminalized suicide, they did so rather reluctantly. Deep down they continued to feel revulsion from the idea of any suicide, in any circumstances. They said to themselves "Well, we may have to let people do it, but we can try to scare them out of it. We can arrange things so that the simple and graceful methods require the involvement of another person, and we will criminalize such involvement. Faced with a situation in which the only all-by-yourself methods are chancy, slow, painful or aesthetically sub-optimal, most people will resign themselves to remaining alive, however miserably."
(Issue 10:1, Jan.-Mar. 2008)
They Say:
Even if suicide has been de-criminalized by a government (as happened in
Canada in 1972) it remains "a crime against the universe". Once
we have been born we must struggle to remain alive, not giving up until
we are completely overcome and have no choice.
We Reply:
The sense of being obliged to live is probably an instinct bred into us
by evolution. Homo erectus adolescents who had this "belief"
would have been more likely than non-believers to persevere through terrible
adversity and pass their genes on to descendants.
But like many other instincts, this one may sacrifice individuals for the
sake of the species. Our rational powers – usually a better guide than
instinct – tell us that life is an elective, not a compulsory course.
(Issue 9:4, Oct.-Dec. 2007)
They Say:
An act is made worse by being intentional. This is why we punish first-degree
murder more severely than second-degree murder, or manslaughter. And it
is why doctors must never end life intentionally.
We Reply:
"Intentionalness" does not always make an act more evil. Instead,
it reinforces the already-existing moral character of an act. A bad act
is made worse, and a good act is made better. (If you pull some change
from your pocket and give it to a beggar sitting on the sidewalk, you get
more points than if a few coins fall out of a hole in your pocket and drop
into the beggar's hand.)
When ending life is a good act – as we believe it can be, in certain circumstances
– it is made better by being intentional. Thus, doctors who properly give
death need not fear openness about their goals. People who deny or condemn
intent in this situation are probably still hostage to the assumption that
ending life is always a bad act.
(Issue 9:3, Jul.-Sep. 2007)
They Say:
As a society we will become hardened if we accept the practice of ending
life when irremediable suffering develops. We will get comfortable with
the role of executioner.
We Reply:
As a society we will become hardened if we permit no more than passive
observation when irremediable suffering develops. We will get comfortable
with the role of torturer.
(Issue 9:2, Apr.-Jun. 2007)
Philip Prins Says:
" ... people with disabilities ... are more susceptible to the power
of suggestion ..."
(Page 3 in Fall 2006 issue of EPC's euthanasia newspaper)
We Reply:
This is an example of the labelling and lumping-together that disabled
people so often object to. (And this particular claim is insulting besides.)
Having an accident that makes you need a wheelchair does not suddenly eliminate
your individuality. Surveys have shown that a spectrum of opinion regarding
the right to die exists within the disabled community. And opinions are
distributed in much the same way as they are within the rest of the population
– e.g. 66% support among the disabled, and 70% support elsewhere, according
to a 1994 Harris poll.
(Issue 9:1, Jan.-Mar. 2007)
They Say:
When doctors provide an incurably suffering patient with deep sedation,
while obeying a request that tube feeding be withheld, they are not intending
that the patient die. It just happens that death occurs.
We Reply:
Are we supposed to be comforted by the image of doctors stumbling subconsciously
through their professional labours, leaving behind a trail of unintended
effects? Surely compassionate purposefulness is a more reassuring picture.
(Issue 8:4, Oct.-Dec. 2006)
They Say:
Euthanasia and assisted suicide should not be made legal, because society
must protect its vulnerable citizens.
We Reply:
Yes, citizens must indeed be protected, but from what? From certain events,
or from certain experiences? Death is an unwelcome event when it means
the end of pleasant experiences, but when it means the end of unpleasant
experiences it can be very welcome. People who are at great risk for horrible
experiences may not want to be protected from death, they may want to be protected by death.
(Issue 8:3, Jul.-Sep. 2006)
They Say:
In order to survive, a society needs to have its laws respected by its
citizens.
We Add:
In order to avoid corrupting its citizens, a society needs to have laws
which its citizens can honestly respect.
(Issue 8:2, Apr.-Jun. 2006)
They Say:
Euthanasia and assisted suicide should not encompass the disabled.
We Reply:
People with a non-progressive disability may well have no desire for a
hastened death. However, people afflicted with a progressive disease often
want to avoid living through its final stages. Such conditions give their
victims a superficial resemblance to "the disabled" in the original
or standard sense of that term, but we should not be misled. If those who
die slowly of degenerative conditions are barred from aid in dying, the
only people who qualify will be those who die quickly – of a massive stroke
or heart attack – precisely the people who do not need the aid.
(Issue 8:1, Jan.-Mar. 2006)
They Say:
We should not act to avoid expected suffering, as Charles Fariala did.
We should wait until the suffering has become unbearable, or at least until
it has started.
We Reply:
If we followed this policy we would not let our dentist give us local anaesthesia
until the drilling had begun and we had verified that it would cause us
pain. But by such behaviour we would deny ourselves one of the major advantages
of being a homo sapiens instead of a mouse like the one the poet Robert
Burns unearthed with his plow ("The present only toucheth thee").
(Issue 7:4, Oct.-Dec. 2005)
George Herbert Said:
Living well is the best revenge.*
We Suggest:
Dying well is even better.**
*No. 524 in Outlandish Proverbs, published in 1640.
**Herbert might agree; Proverb 522 is "A faire death honours the whole
life."
(Issue 7:3, Jul.-Sep. 2005)
They Say:
It is wrong to euthanize a baby "pre-emptively" (to save it from
future suffering, or from an escalation of present suffering, when such
a development is felt to be extremely probable).
We Reply:
Where euthanasia and assisted suicide are forbidden,
parents and doctors may think "better safe than sorry" and "it's
now or never". Babies are so fragile that no dramatic actions are
needed to make them die, and a death at this stage usually passes without
notice.
But where euthanasia and assisted suicide are permitted,
parents and doctors feel no need to act pre-emptively; they can "wait
and see". If unbearable and intractable suffering does indeed develop
later on, it can be dealt with at that time – by assisted suicide in the
case of sufferers who are able to accomplish their own escape, or by euthanasia
in other cases.
(Issue 7:2, Apr.-Jun. 2005)
They Say:
Doctors believe that their role is to preserve life, so they should never
be asked to end life.
We Reply:
Many patients, and an increasing number of doctors, disagree. They believe
that a doctor's role is to prevent or eliminate suffering. And they realize
that sometimes the only way to eliminate suffering while still respecting
the values of the patient (who may abhor the idea of dying slowly and "snowed",
at great cost to the state) is to end the person's life expeditiously,
while selfhood is still intact.
(Issue 7:1, Jan.-Mar. 2005)
They Assume:
A prohibition on aid in dying is a pro-life policy. It means that more
life gets lived.
We Reply:
That is only the theory. In reality, the effect of the policy can be that
less life gets lived. Thoughtful people may take care not to live beyond
the point at which they can escape without putting friends and relatives
at risk for imprisonment or bankruptcy.
(Issue 6:4, Oct.-Dec. 2004)
Politicians Say:
We cannot change the law concerning euthanasia and assisted suicide because
there is no consensus among Canadians about the matter.
We Reply:
Was there consensus among Canadians about allowing women to vote, or about
abolishing capital punishment, or about extending equal rights to same-sex
couples?
History suggests that sometimes our government changes the law simply because
it is the right thing to do.
(Issue 6:3, Jul.-Sep. 2004)
They Say:
Charles Fariala's suicide was a mistake because he was obviously suffering
from clinical depression, which commonly affects people who have MS.
We Reply:
If Fariala had lived in a place where assisted suicide was legal, instead
of in Canada, he would have felt free to discuss suicide with his doctor.
The doctor would have referred him for a psychiatric examination, and if
pathological depression had been discovered, treatment would have been
prescribed. He might have ended up deciding to go quite a bit further down
the road.
Issue 6:2 (Apr.-Jun. 2004)
The World Health
Organization Says:
No country should consider legislation allowing for physician-assisted
suicide or euthanasia until it has assured for its citizens the availability
of services for pain relief and palliative care. (Cancer Pain Relief and Palliative Care, 1990)
We Reply:
The WHO makes two assumptions:
(1) that there is an "either-or" relationship between palliative
care and aid in dying, and
(2) that palliative care is everyone's first choice (people only settle
for aid in dying if they can't get palliative care).
Neither of these assumptions is justified.
(1) Many people want both options – they want palliative care during phases
1 through 6, then they want aid in dying so they can skip phases 7 and
8.
(2) Even among people who are content with only one of the two options,
a hastened death may be the first choice; some people have no desire for
an extended experience of their final decline, preferring instead to "quit
while they're ahead".
Issue 6:1 (Jan.-Mar. 2004)
They Imply:
It is a sign of emotional immaturity to want a swift passage from life
to death. Mature people are content with a non-hastened death – over a
period of several months or years if necessary – as the current system
provides.
We Reply:
Then presumably it is also a sign of emotional immaturity to want a swift
passage from one side of the ocean to the other, and mature people will
be content to travel by ship rather than by plane – "Getting there
is half the fun!"
Issue 5:4 (Oct.-Dec. 2003)
Dr. Howard Dean says:
I as a physician would not be comfortable administering lethal drugs. (Excerpt
from an Oregon Public Radio interview on August 19)
We Reply:
Should your comfort be your primary consideration?
Issue 5:3 (Jul.-Sep. 2003)
They say:
If people think that a doctor would be willing to end their life, they
will stop trusting that doctor.
We Reply:
If people think that a doctor gives priority to his or her own values and
psychological comfort, rather than to the patient's values and comfort,
they will stop trusting that doctor.
Issue 5:2 (Apr.-Jun. 2003)
They say:
Good palliative care is able to eliminate pain and distress in 95% of patients.
We Reply:
The people in the remaining 5% are therefore members of a minority. But
other minorities, such as the disabled, are felt to be worthy of consideration
and respect; why is this minority not worthy?
Issue 5:1 (Jan.-Mar. 2003)
They say:
If you really love your children you will accept a long slow dying, so
that those who are close to you can feel the satisfaction of caring for
you during the months or years of your final decline, even though you yourself
are longing to have it all be over with. If you have a hastened death,
your relatives may be left with guilt feelings.
We Reply:
If you really love your children you will try to imbue them with enough
inner strength that they can deal with having you die at the time you prefer,
whether or not that is the time they prefer. Otherwise, if their ideas
continue developing after you are gone, they may come to feel deeply guilty
about having made you sacrifice your comfort to theirs.
Issue 4:4 (Oct.-Dec. 2002)
They say:
As elderly people become increasingly numerous, governments will be inclined
towards policies that reduce healthcare expenditures, especially expenditures
on long-term care. There will be pressure to die.
We Reply:
As elderly people become increasingly numerous, both the private and the
public sectors will see long-term "care" as a revenue opportunity.
Operators of facilities, and manufacturers of products used therein, will
make profits; governments will collect sales taxes on the products, and
income taxes on the people who apply them to the consumers. There will
be pressure to live.