The Sanctity of Life: Euthanasia & The Church
Today, I’ll be talking about the sanctity of life again, and this time arguing against euthanasia, and giving Church teaching on it.
There’s an area similar to suicide: euthanasia. Places like Canada are actively legalizing killing people, along with other nations- and even some US states are tolerating and promoting it. I came across a despicable post recently of a “conservative” arguing for euthanasia on the grounds of “fiscal responsibility”, and while he might not have meant it to look backwards- it was truly a disgusting comment, and more significantly: it is an attack on the teachings of the Church, and an evil that must be condemned for the wicked thing it is.
Euthanasia in applications and health terminology means a couple of things that I want to articulate to better understand the issue: but it fundamentally means the intentional death of a human person. Medicine.missouri.edu writes on the subject the varying applications of euthanasia: “active euthanasia: killing a patient by active means, for example, injecting a patient with a lethal dose of a drug; sometimes called ‘aggressive’ euthanasia. Passive euthanasia: intentionally letting a patient die by withholding artificial life support such as a ventilator or feeding tube. Some ethicists distinguish between withholding life support and withdrawing life support (the patient is on life support but then removed from it). Voluntary euthanasia: with the consent of the patient. Involuntary euthanasia: without the consent of the patient, for example, if the patient is unconscious and his or her wishes are unknown.. Some ethicists distinguish between ‘involuntary’ (against the patient’s wishes) and ‘nonvoluntary’ (without the patient’s consent but wishes are unknown) forms. Self-administered euthanasia: the patient administers the means of death. Other-administered euthanasia: a person other than the patient administers the means of death. Assisted: the patient administers the means of death but with the assistance of another person, such as a physician.”
Euthanasia is condemned by the Catholic Church because God gives us life and can take it according to His will, which we must submit to rather than our own. I wanted to get into a specific example that I found hard to reconcile at first, and that is what some call “mercy-killing” euthanasia. Catholic Answers apologist Trent Horn says the following about such contentions: “Most people … When we think of assisted suicide, most people think, ‘Oh, well, this is for someone who’s just in so much pain. They have bone cancer. They’re in tremendous pain, physical pain that cannot be treated, and we don’t want to be miserable.’ That’s not the leading reason why people ask for assisted suicide. And the number-one reasons are loss of autonomy, because they don’t want to be a burden on others, and they don’t like that they have lost autonomy. They need help going to the bathroom. They need help having mobility. They feel like their lives are not as valuable, because they do not have their autonomy any more. In fact, it says here, ‘The reasons most frequently cited for requesting euthanasia in Canada were the inability to engage in meaningful activities or perform activities of daily living.’ This is not about uncontrollable pain. We have the resources to control pain for people. Rather, this is about people feeling like their lives are not worth living any more, or they’re concerned that they are a social, emotional, or a financial burden on their families.” He goes on, “I appeal to principals of reason, saying, look, we already keep people from committing suicide if they are healthy. If they are a healthy person who is going to jump off the Coronado Bay bridge down here, we use force to stop them from doing that. But for some reason we say, oh, you’re a sick person, you’re an elderly person. Nevermind, you’re not as valuable. You don’t deserve our help. That’s basically what we’re saying. And when people bring up assisted suicide and they say, why won’t you let people end their own lives, I turned the question back on them. The point I wanted to make to people was that we should treat all people with equal dignity. And especially if you only have a short amount of time left in life, your life is even more valuable and worthy of protection because you have so little of it left. And that’s how we should treat those who are terminally ill, who are elderly, who are disabled. Oh, and what I said to people that say, well, people should be allowed to end their own lives. I asked them, do you think that for everybody? They don’t believe that about the healthy guy who’s going to jump off the Bay Bridge because his girlfriend broke up with them. They don’t believe that. Well just someone who is suffering and who has six months left to live. Okay, well if it’s suffering that matters to you, what about the person who has 30 years left? What about a quadriplegic? What about a paraplegic? What about someone who is in chronic pain or depression because they’ve suffered the death of a spouse or a child? When you start drawing lines, that slippery slope pushes the line back until we don’t care if anyone ends their own lives, and that’s not a good world to live in.”
He continues: “Now: some assisted suicide proponents will say, well, we’ve outlawed, suicide used to be a crime. It’s like, what’s the penalty for assisted suicide, death? And we understood, but as modern medicine advanced, we saw that yes, suicide is harmful, but it’s harmful because a person is usually clinically depressed, and so they’re not in a rational state of mind. They’re still harming themselves. We don’t consider it a crime because the person lacks culpability. But someone who is of sound mind and faculties who helps someone who is of an unsound mind end their own life, that can be a crime. And in fact, there have been news stories recently of women who have gone to jail because they coaxed and berated boyfriends and partners who had mental illnesses to end their own lives. We saw, look, this person harmed themselves, they’re not culpable. You are of sound mind and body. You shouldn’t encourage them to do something this destructive. And yet when a doctor is willing to go along with a patient who’s terminally ill or may just be losing their bodily faculties.”
Trent continues: “Imagine someone who is a quadriplegic or someone with chronic pain who’s not terminally ill. They may say, if this terminally ill person can end their own life because they’re sick of the pain, why not me? I’m going to have more pain than them. If you hold the logic of assisted suicide and you’re concerned about being ‘compassionate’, compassion though is not getting rid of pain by any means. Compassion means to suffer alongside someone. Then if you defend assisted suicide, you don’t really have a leg to stand on to deny someone who is quadriplegic, paraplegic, someone who has diabetes and amputations. What about someone who is just depressed? Someone who’s struggling with the death of a spouse, the death of a child, they don’t want to live anymore. Why is it that, oh, if someone wants to die because their spouses die, well, they’re just depressed. But if someone wants to die because they only have a few months left to live, or they’re older, or they’re disabled, or they have multiple sclerosis, well then they’re in the right state of mind? Now we’re making a judgment about whose lives are worth living and whose aren’t.” That’s a dangerous territory to enter indeed, and it’s why we just return to the basic fundamental principle of Christianity that all life is equally valuable and we don’t have a right to end it intentionally- be it our own or someone else.
Trent Horn, in a different interview, notes his broader final analysis as this: “Whenever you make assisted suicide legal, you try to draw a line to say, ‘Here is a group of people whose lives are worth living, and so we will help them out of their decision. If other people talk to them and try to get them to kill themselves, and they do, they can be held criminally responsible for that.’ That is wrong. I believe we, as a society, should say every human life matters. Every human life has the right to life, and what that means is every human being matters. So any human being who is considering destroying that valuable life, throwing their life away, we will intervene and help them out of that destructive decision. We will not help them further into it. Now, that does not mean we’re going to keep someone alive forever or subject them to any treatment necessary to keep them alive. There are treatments that are proportionate, that benefit the patient, and other treatments that are disproportionate.”
More significantly, The Church teaches the following in its Catechism, in Paragraphs 2276-2279: “Those whose lives are diminished or weakened deserve special respect. Sick or handicapped persons should be helped to lead lives as normal as possible. Whatever its motives and means, direct euthanasia consists in putting an end to the lives of handicapped, sick, or dying persons. It is morally unacceptable. Thus an act or omission which, of itself or by intention, causes death in order to eliminate suffering constitutes a murder gravely contrary to the dignity of the human person and to the respect due to the living God, his Creator. The error of judgment into which one can fall in good faith does not change the nature of this murderous act, which must always be forbidden and excluded. Discontinuing medical procedures that are burdensome, dangerous, extraordinary, or disproportionate to the expected outcome can be legitimate; it is the refusal of ‘overzealous’ treatment. Here one does not will to cause death; one's inability to impede it is merely accepted. The decisions should be made by the patient if he is competent and able or, if not, by those legally entitled to act for the patient, whose reasonable will and legitimate interests must always be respected. Even if death is thought imminent, the ordinary care owed to a sick person cannot be legitimately interrupted. The use of painkillers to alleviate the sufferings of the dying, even at the risk of shortening their days, can be morally in conformity with human dignity if death is not willed as either an end or a means, but only foreseen and tolerated as inevitable Palliative care is a special form of disinterested charity. As such it should be encouraged.”
Sources:
https://medicine.missouri.edu/centers-institutes-labs/health-ethics/faq/euthanasia
https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/what-about-the-right-to-die
https://www.catholic.com/audio/cot/the-secret-history-of-euthanasia-and-assisted-suicide
https://www.catholic.com/audio/cot/the-best-argument-for-outlawing-assisted-suicide
Catholic Answers Videos on Euthanasia: