Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide(4)

longer has a worthwhile life, then supporters of voluntary euthanasia are buying into a larger package-deal than they perhaps realise. For if one can be benefited by being killed, is it reasonable to deprive people of that benefit simply because they are incapable of asking to be killed? And if we are puzzled (rightly) by the claim that someone might be benefited by having his life ended, we might nonetheless accept the claim that a person cannot be harmed by having his worthless life ended.

In fact the most active and clear-sighted advocates of the legalization of voluntary euthanasia are also advocates of the legalization of non-voluntary euthanasia. They promote the view that many human beings lack the 'moral standing' (what is here called 'basic dignity') in virtue of which they enjoy basic human rights; so they cannot be wronged even if the motive for killing them is merely the convenience of those human beings who do have 'moral standing'. The whole exercise of drawing a line between human beings who do and those who do not possess 'moral standing' is utterly arbitrary. Advocates of the legalization of euthanasia, such as the philosophers Peter Singer and Helga Kuhse, who embrace such arbitrariness, do so without any evident concern for the subversion of the foundations of justice which the arbitrariness entails.

4. Legalization of voluntary euthanasia would also encourage the practice of non-voluntary euthanasia without benefit of legalization This would happen in two ways: * firstly, it has proved to be the case that those who begin by saying they wish to confine the practice of euthanasia to voluntary euthanasia come to think that, if that is allowed, no good reason remains for disallowing non-voluntary euthanasia, so they begin to plan for the systematic practice of non-voluntary euthanasia. This phenomenon can be seen, for example, in the behaviour of The Royal Dutch Medical Association over the past fifteen years. Having worked for the acceptance of what purported to be the 'strictly controlled' practice of voluntary euthanasia only, they are now working for the acceptance of the practice of non-voluntary euthanasia. * secondly, because the criteria for delimiting the practice of euthanasia to killing at the request of the patient prove to be irremediably imprecise. The Dutch experience has demonstrated the truth of what critics said about any legal accommodation of voluntary euthanasia (whether by statute law or by judicial decision), namely, that it would lead to the extensive practice of non-voluntary euthanasia. The available data show, on a conservative estimate, that about 1 in 12 deaths in Holland in 1990 were euthanasia deaths (10,558 cases) and more than half of these were without explicit request.

5. Euthanasia undermines the dispositions we require in doctors and is therefore destructive of the practice of medicine The practice of medicine cannot flourish unless doctors are so disposed that they inspire trust in patients many of whom are extremely vulnerable. Doctors will not inspire trust unless patients are confident that doctors * are for no reasons disposed to kill them; * have no inclination to ask whether a patient is worth caring for or treating, rather than asking what care or treatment might benefit the patient.

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