Why am I so terrified by euthanasia?
by Rev Dr Ian Stackhouse, Senior Minister, Millmead, Guildford Baptist Church, Surrey.
As the bill for the legalisation of euthanasia is introduced in Parliament this autumn, I have been sitting here trying to work out exactly why it is that I am so terrified by the prospect of it becoming law. I know it’s not just my evangelical instinct because I’m not that kind of evangelical. I actually don’t like the approach of some in our evangelical community on these kinds of issues. Nor do I think it’s lack of compassion. I’ve been round enough care homes and hospital wards over the years to register the immense strain and sometimes distress of end-of-life care. You would have to be pretty hard hearted not to. So what is it then that makes me feel so anxious when I think of euthanasia? Beyond the arguments around possible coercion, potential manipulation of the vulnerable, or the ‘beginning of the slippery slope’ trajectory, which are well-rehearsed and indeed a cause for great concern, a much more fundamental angst for me - something which I find chilling, if I am honest - is the sheer hopelessness it all represents.
Those who campaign for euthanasia don’t see it in these terms at all. On the contrary, they couch their arguments with words like dignity, love and compassion. And who am I to question that? I have no doubt that is what motivates so many of the ideas around this subject. Put it like this: I certainly don’t see these people as heartless killers; nor do I regard those who want to end their lives in this way as nihilists (although I suspect a good number are ideological secularists). What I do register, however, among those who promote this agenda is a profound existential emptiness. Not for no reason, euthanasia is often referred to as assisted suicide, and in my pastoral experience suicide equates to emotional isolation on a grand scale. Again, I mean not to dismiss the emotional and physical distress that brings people to this place. But what I cannot seem to get away from in my thinking about this matter - and it is surely a matter we must think about - is what I can only describe as the clinical and somewhat brutal autonomy that is required in order to pull off such a feat.
The belief in individual autonomy has been with us for quite a while now, of course. Philosophically, it underpins the whole of the Enlightenment project. The idea that ‘I am the master of my fate, the captain of my soul,’ to quote the lines from Invictus by William Ernest Henley, is fundamental to our human rights, and deeply embedded in our western psyche. But with autonomy comes the smallness as well as the sadness of a self-referential world. Devoid of any notion of transcendence, beyond that of self-transcendence, we shall be governed by legislation (even with all the caveats around what constitutes terminal illness), predicated on the dangerously subjective notion of ‘quality of life’. For many people that is an entirely legitimate criterion. We use it for our dogs without any questions. But for some reason, apart from the obvious one that I am not a dog, I can’t seem to get there in my thinking about humans. It sounds right; but everything in me tells me it is wrong. To legalise euthanasia is to allow human autonomy to run to its logical end game (no pun intended), where life, or in this instance death, is determined by an individualism bordering on idolatry. Furthermore, as former director of the Jubilee Centre Jonathan Tame puts it, in a recent post for The Relationist, whatever might be achieved for a few will have serious consequences for the many who are caught up in these decisions, including doctors, carers, and family. The risks are too high.
Philosophically, even if we could guarantee that the guidelines around the legalisation of euthanasia would not result in unwanted death, which we almost certainly cannot, nevertheless, to allow it to be operative in our society is, in my opinion, one further step towards utopianism - by which I mean a world without suffering. According to the progressive left, which is driving a great deal of the political agenda right now, utopia is the goal of freedom; for me, it is the antithesis of freedom. Paradoxically, the eradication of physical degeneration, both at the beginning of life as well as the end of life, is not the triumph it purports to be but the loss of faith, hope and love. To live in a world where there are no disabled children (whatever that means), because we have screened them out before they are even born, and then to terminate suffering at the end of life by virtue of a lethal injection sounds enlightened, but as with so many things that promise freedom it is another step towards tyranny. Our society will not be enriched but diminished as a result of this legislation.
To be clear, to resist the move towards ending life, in the sense of assisted suicide, is certainly not to promote the prolongation of life at all costs. There comes a time in end-of-life care when medical intervention needs to stop, and death must take its course. All good palliative care recognises this, even as it also ensures the mitigation of pain right to the end. It has been my privilege as a pastor to witness this countless times. It really is dignified. And it is dignified, I want to argue, precisely because the line is still there between this scenario and, to my mind, the undignified scenario of actively hastening death. Indeed, to remove that line, which is what is being proposed in our Parliament this autumn, is to effectively scramble all those nuanced and skilful decisions that are made every day in hospices, hospitals and homes around the country. As a friend of mine pointed out to me - a Dutch Catholic in fact who has years of experience in end-of-life care - there is a reason we should hold the line against euthanasia. The reason is not to thwart compassion but to protect it and allow all those complex and sometimes slightly ambiguous decisions of end-of-life care to take place within the safe boundaries of traditional ethics. Take that boundary away, which is what is being proposed this autumn, and much of that disappears. It will be a sad day indeed if we get to that point.
November 2024
The views and opinions expressed above are those of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect those of the Jubilee Centre or its trustees.
