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Euthanasia The
title of this week’s meeting should have made reference to old age. It is
natural to think of old age and euthanasia at the same mental event. And if
the push came to shove, we would include assisted suicide in the context. It
is unfortunate that, for a change in philosophy, we should be clear about the
meaning of such emotional and distressing concepts as euthanasia and assisted
suicide. The difference centres on who performs the last act that causes
death. Administering the lethal injection to yourself is assisted suicide if
the injection was handed to you by someone else. Someone else administering
the lethal injection is euthanasia. That part is simple, how we get there is
a whole legal, political, philosophical, religious and
everything-else-you-care-to-think-of mine field. The
conflict we have at hand rests on two very basic philosophical concepts:
death and pain. As I write this I am hearing a programme on the radio (BBC
Radio 4*) where one of the speaker described life as
negative entropy: instead of a system progressing into minimum energy, life
is a system that turns into a higher energy system. If we accept this
analogy, death seems to be the opposite of what we are all about. It is, but
no one seems to have told entropy about it. The second issue we are dealing
with is pain. However, pain seems to have the bad habit (sic) of getting out
of hand. It seems that in some cases instead of serving as a warning sign,
pain becomes as a cue for self distract. And if this was not bad enough, when
we add family and professionalism we have a serious moral dilemma to deal
with. What
are the arguments? Public policy interests prevent governments from
sanctioning euthanasia and assisted suicide on the grounds that no one should
have a licence to kill. Furthermore, some would argue that the medical
profession should not be placed in a position of having to decide who lives
and who dies. The pragmatists would argue that this already happens, so what
the big deal? Again, people should be protected from coercion or pressure at
their weakest moments. Indeed, it is a fine line to distinguish between a
legitimate case of euthanasia and a manipulated case. So here is a practical
moral question: should the dishonesty of some jeopardise the rights and
dignity of the majority? And should we be pragmatists in this matter? Let
us move away from the traditional debate and look at the issues from
different angles. It is generally assumed that euthanasia affects the
elderly. True enough, but what is old? And even if we take the statistics at
face value, women tend to live longer than men, so does this mean that
euthanasia and assisted suicide are more of a problem for the female
population? It
is true that the criteria for euthanasia and assisted suicide are pain,
terminal illness and unacceptable deterioration quality of life. But should
euthanasia and assisted suicide be also available to someone who is for sure
going to suffer from a condition that will entail intolerable pain? In other
words, is it acceptable to have euthanasia to prevent pain? A hypothetical
question, I must admit, but nevertheless an interesting one. However,
euthanasia and assisted suicide should tax the minds and brains of
professionals and politicians not just on the issue of killing. I will argue
that euthanasia and assisted suicide raise more serious issues that focus on
matters of life rather than death. In particular, should governments curtail
or even prevent research that might have the answers to some causes of pain
or the degeneration of quality of life?, For
example, stem cell research, cloning research or foetal research. Mind you, I
am not talking about the elixir of life here; I’m thinking of preventing
diseases, a solution to transplant organs, pain control drugs, better therapy drugs and so on. Is there already a
laboratory with some of the answers near you? Take
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