What was once known as suicide has been renamed by some “Assisted dying.” Both terms make me uncomfortable.
Western culture has long abhorred suicide. The ancient Romans considered it a serious offense against the person, their family and the empire. If an individual chose to take their own life, the government confiscated all their tangible assets, leaving their family nothing.
Some emperors picked one or more rich citizens and sent them a messenger warning they were about to be arrested for treason. They would be taken in chains to Rome, tried, convicted, all their assets would be confiscated and their families would be sold into slavery.
Option two: they could take their own life, the emperor will still seize all your wealth but your family can go free. It was not good either way.
Later, the church and government routinely took assets of those who committed suicide because self-murder was a serious offense self-murder. Since the persons could not confess their sins and be absolved after they died, they went to the grave as unrepentant sinners.
Attempted suicide is still illegal in many countries, but now some have sanctioned it. But it is carefully regulated.
For example, in some states in this country, a person who is terminally ill with less than six months to live can, with support of his or her doctor, petition the state to be allowed an early exit.
But in other countries, notably Canada, a person can request assisted death for almost any reason. In 2024, a young woman was terribly depressed, saw no real future ahead of her, was very lonely and without friends. She had no physical ailments nor terminal illness and the government granted her request.
We find ourselves caught in the middle of diametrically opposite moral imperatives. On one hand, suicide or assisted death is the taking of human life; on the other, we do not want to see people suffer. One involves reverence for life; the other is a concern for economics under the guise of ending pain.
We have a long tradition of reverence for all life, regardless of its quality. Opposing it is our belief in personal autonomy. We should make our own decisions in what we believe is best for us. If I believe that because of medical or other conditions I cannot live in dignity, then I have the right to bring my life to an end.
As Seneca, the Roman stoic philosopher said, “It makes a great deal of difference whether a man is lengthening his life or lengthening his death.”
A strong argument for assisted death for those suffering from an irrevocable illness is that it spares them and loved ones a lot of pain. It also helps protect the assets that might be passed on to family rather than the medical profession.
The rationale is “we would never make our pet l suffer, so why insist a that human suffer?”
This may appear humane, but there is potential to slip into the dark side. Instead of being allowed to have an assisted death, the decision might be made for us by loved one or the government.
That’s what happened when the Bavarian Corp. Hitler ran Germany in the 1930s. Children whose mental capacity was severely diminished and required round-the-clock care were euthanized by the government. Those who suffered from serious mental or physical illnesses suffered the same fate.
It could happen again, maybe this time with variations. Someone of advanced age, unable to work or contribute to society might one day be wheeled out of their home or a care facility, never to return. Or for any other reason a government deemed appropriate.
Do we want to live in a society where relief from pain, for some predetermined reason, leads to an expectation of euthanasia? To quote Charles Dickens, society’s goal is to “decrease the surplus population” based primarily on economics. Might we get to a point where enforced assisted death becomes public policy because it is expedient?
There is a porous wall between mandated life regardless of medical circumstances, and a policy of assisted death. We will be hard pressed to find one size that fits all answers.
A century and a half ago people often died from appendicitis. Then surgeons began removing the offending organ and most patients lived.
A century ago, before penicillin, pneumonia was often called “the old man’s friend” because it shortened the life of many elderly patients.
Seventy-plus years ago royal English physicians, knowing King George was near the end, hastened things along with a little extra morphine so his passing could be announced in the Times rather than the “low-class” tabloids.
To some extent we are victims of our own success. Medicine has moved from the most physicians being general or family practitioners to an ever-growing battalion of specialists.
More than 100 ago, Dr. Will Mayo warned of over-relying on specialists at the cost of wisdom and experience. The older generation of doctors, who knew their patients, approached final stages of a terminal illness and life with great caution and gentleness.
It may not have been a perfect system, but it beats turning herds of politicians and insurance lobbyists loose on this sticky moral question.
It means that churches, advocates for those with serious illnesses, mental and/or physical challenges and those of advanced age have their work cut out for them.
We either make our voices heard or we will hear voices of others, and we may not like what they say.
