Why is Euthanasia Wrong? Why is euthanasia wrong?

Euthanasia is wrong because it negates and contradicts a fundamental and grave moral duty: the duty to relieve hopeless suffering. Euthanasia pretends to be a moral act in the most noble sense of the word, and the very essence of this pretence is its (pretended) fulfillment of the fundamental and grave moral obligation to relieve hopeless suffering. Euthanasia would be a good moral act if it in fact did what it pretends to do. Yet euthanasia is an evil moral actbecause it does the opposite of what it pretends to do. Instead of relieving hopeless suffering it aggravates and consummates the same hopeless suffering which it pretends to relieve. Hopeless suffering cries out for acute and urgent relief. The fact that it is hopeless suffering means there is no possibility of relief. Nevertheless such suffering cries out, in a terrible paradox, for precisely that relief which is impossible. If one argues for the permissibility of euthanasia on the basis of the existence of hopeless suffering, one is necessarily arguing that the hopelessness in question is something objective. The objectivity of hopeless suffering is therefore the basis of any sensible discussion of the morality of euthanasia. Euthanasia renders homicide as the adequate response to hopeless suffering. This homicide pretends to be the relief which is sought. (The argument in favor of euthanasia, if one boils it down, is never that euthanasia does not constitute homicide, but that it constitutes a homicide which is rationally justified in view of the phenomenon of hopeless suffering.) But to accept homicide as the adequate response to hopeless suffering is to banalize and ultimately deny the phenomenon of hopeless suffering. The homicide which constitutes euthanasia is not simply and inadequate response to call to relieve hopeless suffering; it is a response which goes in the wrong direction. It does not relieve; it aggravates. It pretends to empty the chalice of suffering, but instead of emptying it, it fills it further. It fills it to the brim. Euthanasia therefore ought not to be confused with palliative therapy for the terminally ill (pain relief pursued as a good in itself). The progress of medical care in this field is to be welcomed, applauded and further stimulatedmedical care which cannot be reduced to the exclusively pharmacological, but which always will always must be fully human, and which therefore has a relation to the miracle of authentic charity, compassion and care for the suffering fellow human being. It is, above all, this miracle which trumps the hopelessness of hopeless suffering. The prolife option, animated by a serene faith in this miracle, is thus far removed from a mere fatalism and inaction. It is the one position before the phenomenon which rhymes with authentic human progress

The operating principle behind arguments for euthanasia, thus, is not simply pain relief. It is rather this idea: that death is the only medicine adequate to relieve hopeless suffering, that death itself, therefore, is the final good, the good that must be realized. (Here one catches glimpse of the nucleus of that culture of death named by Pope John Paul II: a cult of death which is honored as the solution to the Great Curse of hopeless suffering.) The point to be made here is simply this: that the principle is a false principle: death is the triumph of hopeless suffering, not the end of it. While acknowledging the possible good intentions that concrete persons may have or have had in choosing for euthanasia, it is necessary to conclude that Euthanasia in its essential structure, does not constitute a realization of human solidarity, but rather, tragically, a betrayal of human solidarity. Mercy is a good thing; but that does not make mercy-killing a good thing. It is, indeed a complex thing (being an evil thing wrapped in a good wrapper, namely a good intention), but that it is complex means that we need to form our judgment concerning it carefully and uprightly. It does not mean that we may reach no conclusions about euthanasia. It does not mean that there is no conclusion to be made. It does not mean that our conclusion regarding euthanasia is yes and no. It does not mean that euthanasia is not intrinsically wrong. A parallel case: It is politically correct to afiirm that terrorism is wrong, and clearly wrong. Yet terrorism is also a complex reality. One ought to place oneself in the mind of the terrorist. The terrorist chooses an evil thing wrapped in the good wrapper, which, exactly as in the case of euthanasia, is a good intention. A terrorist does not kill simply for the sake of killing. (We have now other names for that phenomenon.) A terrorist is typically someone who has reasons: he is acting in the name of those who are victimized politically, who endure the political version of hopeless suffering (Think of the historically persecuted Catholic in Northern Ireland, the Palestinian) Terrorism is a complex thing. Yet we do not praise the terrorist. Why are we now praising the practitioner of euthanasia? We are now saying that the practitioner of euthanasia is exercising the highest morality. But is that so? I say that it is not so. We praise him because we belong to his tribe. We praise him because he is buttering our bread and solving our problem: We cannot possibly maintain all the older people that our aging society is creating (all those useless leaches and eyesores), because it would crimp our lifestyle, which is of course unthinkable. Therefore certain mechanisms will be perforce created, and they will be surrounded by a faade of high-mindedness. Will that not be a perfect exercise of what was once called social Darwinism, which in plain language is human viciousness but then masked under liberal consensus?

The scandal is that hopeless suffering remains, that it remains unacknowledged, that we have refused to acknowledge it. Merely acknowledging it would be a first step towards salvation, and here is that first step everything. We have chosen the way of that priest and that Levite who refused to see the man who had fallen in the hands of robbers on his way from Jerusalem to Jericho. Those who saw, and refuse to see. John of the Cross: Where there is no love, put love, and there will be love. Euthanasia therefore is wrong. I believe that the moralists and spiritual leaders who have avoided the issue of euthanasia with that politically correct shrug of the shoulders: Gee, that is a difficult one; why doesnt everyone just decide for themselves? have seriously abdicated their proper responsibility: the responsibility of thought, and the responsibility of speaking out.

Appendix 1. I would like feedback regarding the arguments advanced here. If there is some aspect which is not expressed clearly I would like to learn how to express it more clearly. If there is something which ought to be revised in spirit or in letter I would like to work on that. 2. Two authors that are in the background here: a) Pope John Paul II and the thesis regarding acts which are always and intrinsically evil advanced in Splendor Veritatis b) Elizabeth Anne Anscombe, the English philosopher, precursor of John Paul II, in the analysis and rejection of ethical proportionalism and in the (re)establishment of the authentic categories of moral discourse. (Prophetic was her condemnation of the genocidal use of the atomic bomb at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the essay Mr. Trumans Degree) Carl Kuss, L.C.