Euthanasia (follow-up on \"The Terri Schiavo Thing\")

[Sgt. Boomer]

I remember an interview in a documentary with a man who had been a doctor in the SS. His job during the war had been to operate the gas chamber at one of the extermination camps. The interviewer asked how he was able to do what he did. His answer? Not hate; not ideology; not sadism or cynicism; not even apathy. He said it was compassion. They were unwanted by society, the untermensch. And they were suffering, dying slowly and painfully from starvation and disease. He reasoned that a fast death in a gas chamber was more merciful than leaving them to die slowly.

In another documentary, a British officer related how one of his men had told him that he had just killed a little girl. The child’s torso had been cut in half from a bomb blast when a stuka had attacked a column of refugees. There was no question of medical aid or survival, just an imminent painful death. The officer said the man, clearly distraught and fighting back tears, asked him pleadingly, “I did do the right thing, didn’t I sir?”

Compassion is a noble emotion. Suffering evokes empathy in humans – at least in the best of us. But without a strong moral compass even a noble emotion can be twisted to serve an evil end. One of the men who pulled the trigger in the most repulsive crime in human history, did so because he thought he was doing more good than harm.

The British soldier, who did the only humane thing given the extreme circumstances, was racked by guilt nevertheless. That is how it should be.

Mercy killing is not new. It has been tolerated on rare occasions as the lesser evil for a very long time. But in the last several decades there has been a change: activists have fought to make euthanasia not merely tolerable, but acceptable, and to extend its application. For the most part they have succeeded. The most disturbing thing about the Terri Schiavo case has been the fact that in the papers and on TV, the most radical individuals have been presenting euthanasia not merely as acceptable, but as the greater good – the highest ideal – and those who oppose it as immoral.

In a commentary I read the other day (Messy business – Nazi Euthanasia, by John O'Sullivan) the author wrote:

“It was also a secretive and shameful business. Whatever Nazi theory held about the unfit, the Nazis feared the German people would resist the murder of innocent people with mental illnesses. Even in a society hardened by war and brutalized by Nazi propaganda, they took refuge in euphemisms. The official Nazi form letter sent to relatives included the following sentence: \"In view of the nature of his serious, incurable ailment, his death, which saved him from a lifelong institutional sojourn, is to be regarded merely as a release.\"

“…And what is our concern for their \"quality\" of life but a still more positive spin on the Nazi assertion that their death would be \"merely a release.\" Unless there is a strong ethic of life to restrain us, we will always be able to find good reasons why a helpless invalid should quietly disappear and leave us in peace.”

And he concludes with:

“We should also be worried, however, that what the Nazis did in the dark, many Americans now advocate in the full glare of public debate.”

In the ‘Hitler’ thread, jones0430 wrote, “I had a Sunday School teacher who survived the camps. He made no apologies for his fellows. He always said that it was done because the ordinary citizens would not object.”

How does a nation go from civilized and enlightened to Auschwitz? Step by step.

A society may have to tolerate mercy killing (and I include assisted suicide as mercy killing) as occasionally the lesser evil in an imperfect world. But it should never consider it acceptable, let alone the ideal. The only possible justification is if a person is moments from certain death and is suffering excruciating pain, and no treatment or medical aid will help (as in the example of the British soldier).

Suicide is an act of despair. It is tragic and terrible. Even when death is inevitable, to acquiesce to a suicide is to withdraw from someone in need, compassion, care, and hope. We are diminished as individuals and as a society if we don’t affirm the value of life, even in times of pain or difficulty.

Elizabeth Bouvia suffered from severe cerebral palsy. Even so, she earned a bachelor\'s degree from San Diego State University and started on a master\'s. But after a string of personal tragedies, including a divorce and a miscarriage, she choose to commit suicide, citing her disability as the main reason. She tried taking pills twice, slashing her wrists once, and finally starving herself. She asked the staff at a hospital (where she’d been admitted a month earlier) to give her morphine to ease the pain while she did so. They refused and inserted a feeding tube against her will. Richard Scott, a lawyer with the Southern California Chapter of the ACLU volunteered to represent her pro bono (for free). The ACLU hoped to use the case to push the right to die as a civil liberties issue. The court ruled against her and the first appeal failed, but the second appeal overturned the lower court decision and Elizabeth Bouvia had won the right to assisted suicide. However, by that time she had changed her mind and chose to live. A few years after the case, her lawyer, though in perfect health and not disabled, committed suicide.