Euthanasia

MY subject this time, dear readers, is one that always excites considerable controversy and generates fierce debate and hostility between the opposing camps, the proponents and the opponents, those for and those against. And the debate rages on, unresolved, with cases coming up from time to time that are determined by the courts in a somewhat uneven-handed and arbitrary manner, given that the law of this land in this area is outdated and inflexible and unhelpful. But it is not the legal framework that I wish to discuss on this occasion, important as it is, but rather some of the social and moral aspects of euthanasia or mercy killing, as it is also known, and in doing so to express my own opinion on the matter.

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TO be sure we all want to live a long life, the longer the better, as our lifespan is finite and we are a long time dead! And we also want to enjoy good health and live life to the full. This is normal and understandable. But what if a point is reached in our lives when, although we are still alive, our health has completely gone and our enjoyment of life is but a distant memory? What if there is no further effective treatment for our condition, no cure, no remedy, and the likeliest prospect is that we will deteriorate over time, either gradually or rapidly? What if the only treatment available is that of just keeping us alive, in varying degrees of vegetative existence, thereby prolonging our suffering and our distress until inevitably the moment comes, be it weeks, months or years away, when we finally succumb to the inevitable?

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WHAT is it about those who oppose euthanasia that they feel they must officiously strive to keep others alive, often against their express will, even where they are barely breathing, and where they can only be sustained if linked up to some sort of machine, tube-fed and given round-the-clock medical and nursing care? Is it because there is a shortage of people in the world? Is it because they themselves are not in that wretched state and are happy to pontificate and decide the fate of others? Is it because quality of life means nothing to them and they feel it is enough just to breathe even where this is only possible by means of a respirator? Is the mere fact that one exists, regardless of one's physical and mental condition, sufficient to hang on to life at all costs? Or does it all come down to religion in the end? Do they see euthanasia or assisted suicide as a sin against God, a mortal transgression which will consign the victim or perpetrator to the everlasting fires of hell?

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IN all honesty, I fail to see how the anti-euthanasiaists can adequately justify their stance. And this is not because I do not respect their opinion or do not think that they should be allowed to choose, as far as possible, the manner of their exit from their world. It is because this issue is a very personal one and is interwoven with a whole set of beliefs and convictions peculiar to each person and that they have no moral right to impose their beliefs and practices on others. It is because one's life is exactly that: one's life and no-one else's. This means that not only should people have the freedom to lead the lives they want to (providing of course they are not harming others) but also the freedom to end their lives when they have lost every faculty that gives any meaning to such life, when they are gravely ill, in considerable pain and anguish and when there is no reasonable prospect of their recovering or at least improving to a point where life is worth living.

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We all surely agree that life is precious, that it should be respected and preserved, but at the same time we must just as surely make an effort to understand the terrible plight of someone who has lost all those faculties that make life a good and positive thing and not a protracted nightmarish experience empty of all joy and full of pain and dread and an almost certain cruel end. It seems to me a very selfish and narrow-minded stance to insist that we know best what's good for someone going through such torment and that they should seek to stay alive and indeed that those around them, including their loved ones, should strive to keep them alive whatever the cost, the heartache and the suffering, even if it means going against the wishes of the sufferer. We cannot appoint ourselves, or even expect the law to do this on our behalf, supreme arbiters and regulators of the lives of others simply because we would not take the same course of action as someone else in similar circumstances. We have no right to impose what we see as right and just for ourselves on others in such a subjective and personal matter.

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We should not have to resort to going abroad to countries with a more liberal and synpathetic regime in order to have a quick, quiet and painless death or to be assisted by another person to the same end. And mothers who, suffering the unspeakable anguish and torment of watching their child wasting away under the onslaught of an incurable and progressive disease or a condition which, although not fatal (at least in the short-term), condemns the victim to a lifetime of pain, incapacity, misery and despair, should not be hauled up before the courts to be convicted of having committed a crime and be sentenced to a prison term for having done nothing worse than free their dearly loved child from a living nightmare and a fate literally worse than death! This is surely not morally right. And it is about time that the law was brought into line with the dictates of a higher principle than that which would have us desperately, frenetically and dementedly clinging on to life as a mere reflex reaction or cultural precept or inflicting this on someone in our charge. After all, when all's said and done, and sooner or later, we will ALL, every single one of us, die one day, no-one lives forever. It is just that some people are more fortunate than others and are blessed with a fuller and longer and more enriching life than others but their life too must come to an end one day. They should just be grateful that they were spared the horrible fate of those who are driven to consider euthanasia as a way out of their intolerably painful, wretched and demeaning existence.