Thinking Again
C
by Kenneth Bagnell
One of literary history’s most insightful men, George Bernard Shaw, once said something I should take more seriously than I usually do: “Progress is impossible without change… Those who can’t change their minds can’t change anything.” I’ve always been a bit reluctant to change a position I’ve held a long time, like my lifelong opposition to the death penalty. (I will never amend that.) But I’ve begun to change my thoughts on another huge and profoundly complex subject. I dealt with it here a year or so ago, and was very hesitant about it, fearing the proverbial slippery slope. The issue was straight forward Euthanasia or as many now call it Assisted Suicide. I was against it. I now want to say why I’m thinking again. I’m changing. A bit .
The media has recently given wide and balanced coverage to the long awaited decision of the country’s Supreme Court on euthanasia (not just passive, legal euthanasia in which the suffering patient rejects nourishment) but active euthanasia in which another person, usually a physician, injects a deadly agent and the patient expires shortly afterward. Some people –- in say Germany, Denmark, Holland — are quite casual about this but I can’t quite join in. Maybe because I remember a scene from a television film done on euthanasia in a European country where it’s just part of the routine. A physician is making a house call where a man is lying on the living room couch waiting. A few words are exchanged, the physician opens his bag, checks his needle, then injects the man. He says his goodbyes and heads for the door. When he opens it, as I recall, the doctor looks back and utters one sentence: “l’ll call the undertaker.” I’m sure he meant well.
The worry I have is not because I fear a doctor’s judgment or manner. Moreover, I’m not put off by the Supreme Court decision. In fact, I should add, I’m not altogether opposing it. But I’m wary. One thing can lead to another. I read a scholarly study recently, that noted a frightening claim: that in Belgium, children can ask to be euthanized, so long as parents go along. In Germany, a Swiss organization, has opened an office, from which to assist anyone ill enough to want assisted suicide or professionally performed euthanasia. On the other hand, to be fair and reasonable, some countries are strictly opposed: Australia, for one, disallows it, personal euthanasia or physician assisted. And in Israel, it’s long been outside the law with a recent, reasonable provision: an adult can put in writing his or her wish not to be attached to a respirator when nearing the doorway of death.
Christianity is, by no means, united on this matter. In fact, the most unqualified and uniform objection, comes from within Christianity, expressed by Roman Catholics and many conservative Protestants. As for Catholicism, the 2nd Vatican Council in the early 1960s was straight forward: it condemned “all offenses against life itself, murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia and willful suicide.” (It shows no sign of change.) As for Protestant conservatives, the American Association of Evangelicals, with roughly fifty member denominations, some small, some huge, is opposed with certain qualification: “God has given human beings the highest dignity in creation… such human dignity prohibits euthanasia.” (Its statement does allow “withdrawal of life support systems” in dire cases with both dreadful pain and hopeless outlook.) The Judaic view of observant practice is that God and God alone, has the right to extinguish life: “Only the Creator who bestows the gift of life,” says one scholarly guide, “may take away that life, even when it becomes a burden rather than a blessing…”
Islam is, to little surprise, opposed. An official ethical statement on the subject says in part: “Muslims are against euthanasia…. They believe that all human life is sacred because it is given by Allah, and that Allah, chooses how long each person will live. Human beings should not interfere with this….” As for Buddism, a medical academic in a document called, Buddist Bioethics and Euthanasia writes: “Buddists, like most bioethicists, secular and religious, probably oppose involuntary euthanasia. But there are Buddist traditions sympathetic to both voluntary and non-voluntary euthanasia, under certain traditions… It is important to realize that Buddist attitudes to suicide have always been much less harsh than Christian ones…” As for Canadian Christians, the general overview is mixed and reflected in a detailed recent statement by the respected Anglican Archbishop Fred Hiltz which opened with this reasonable comment: “The recent ruling of the Supreme Court of Canada, striking down the long held ban on physician-assisted dying is cause for celebration among many Canadian and cause for great concern among many others…” Indeed.
When I was well on in my pondering and reading on this deeply complex and usually painful issue, I came by accidental good fortune, upon an essay on the euthanasia debate called Going into that Good Night. It was written by the Moderator of the United Church, Rt. Rev. Gary Paterson of Vancouver, where he had been Minister of St. Andrews-Wesley United Church. His essay was written just before the Supreme Court rendered its decision. Reading it I felt he felt as I feel. So my final words on the subject are from the United Church Moderator’s words:
“For Christians, life is a sacred gift from God and needs to be valued and protected. But we also know that both life and death are part of the whole created order. Life itself isn’t absolute. Nor certainly is death. To speak of the sanctity of life is to affirm God’s desire for abundance of life for all of creation. God is love, and the Christian affirmation is that God’s love is the only absolute. “In life in death, in life beyond death, God is with us,” says our creed.
So the United Church’s theological tradition is not to suggest that believing in the sanctity of life means that any attempt to end life must be prevented. Instead, what we are called to do is first listen to the struggles of those who are facing hard decisions and to make sure that they are not alone in those decisions, and second, to trust people with difficult choices about their own lives.
We also live, however, within the legal framework of our society and are bound to honour our laws. But laws change and this is an area where I think they should change in order to allow physician-assisted dying in circumstances that meet carefully defined criteria.
I came to this conclusion after weighing a persuasive range of moral, ethical, and legal arguments on all sides of this question. In the end I concluded that as a society we have to talk more about death and dying. Our communities need to be places where no one struggles with life and death decisions without a listening ear and a warm hand. And as individuals we need help with the difficult choices we are called to make in in our lives today, choices that all too often involve having to choose between the lesser of evils. Hastening death should never be a first choice, but sometimes, for some people, when faced with the unbearable suffering of ALS, or a hundred other terminal illnesses, it may be the right choice. We need only listen to the stories of those who are walking and have walked this path, and trust the decisions they make about their own lives. Sue Rodriguez, Dr. Donald Low, Gloria Taylor, and I believe God, would want it that way.”
All my past blogs are archived on my website: your comments are welcome there: www.kennethbagnell.com.