Assisted Suicide: Canadian Perspectives

DEFINITIONS AND MORAL ISSUES

Jan Narveson DEFINITIONS AND MORAL ISSUES The Issue Does assisted suicide differ from requested euthanasia? If so, in what respects? First, in order to be able to discuss this question, we need to differentiate what we mean by the terms "assisted suicide" and "euthanasia." Only then we can proceed to ask whether we should make legal or moral distinctions between assisted suicide and euthanasia: for example, making the one permissible, the other not. If, after all, there were simply no difference between the two conceptually, then any attempt to differentiate them legallyor morallywouldbe irrelevant and futile from the start. Let us first address the relation between standard suicide and assisted suicide. Prima facie, we can superficially determine that suicide is self-inflicted death, while assisted suicide is death inflicted by someone else. In the special case that isof interest here, assisted suicideis requested by the potentialvictim . This distinction is relevant because requesting assistance in suicide is often regarded as tantamount to initiating it oneself . If I go to the bank to withdraw money from my account, we say that "Iwithdrew it" rather than "the teller gave it to me at my request," although the latter is what in fact happened. (With automated bank machines, our "request" is punched into a computer which then orders the machine to dispense 29 ASSISTED SUICIDE: CANADIAN PERSPECTIVES the requested amount. No one considers it a morally interesting distinction whether we withdraw our money from a sock, a machine or an account with a human intermediary.) Is the involvement of such an intermediary relevant in matters of assisted suicide? Logically, we might answer with four possible replies: both suicide and assisted suicide are wrong; both are right; suicide is right while assisted suicide is wrong; or, assisted suicide is right and suicide wrong. For present purposes, I will eliminate two ofthese responses. Iwill assume that all readers will agree that suicide, while often ill advised and tragic, is nevertheless not to be morally condemned in the way that, for instance, murder is. The question hence becomes onlywhether the moral status of requested euthanasia is the same as (assisted) suicide. Do our reasons for thinking suicide to be outside moral condemnation transfer straight off to cases of assisted suicide? When we describe someone's intervention in the death of another as "assisted suicide," we think of the assisting person as acting as an agent for the patient who invokes such aid. The role of this facilitatoris logicallyakin to that of the bank teller who routinely facilitates a requested transaction. However, when we employ the terminology "requested euthanasia," we seek to characterize something quite different. Weexpect a request to be deliberatelyand thoroughly considered by the person whose action is being requested. We expect that this person addresses the moral significanceof such a question independently . For example,if Jones is ill, and for reasons of his own sees his case as hopeless and wants to end his life, the recipient of this request must now decide whether Jones is indeed suffering to an extent that euthanasia should be contemplated. The requested agent who would facilitate the euthanasia must address her own conscience; she might conclude that euthanasia would be wrong in Jones' case, or even that euthanasia as such is immoral. Can careful definition of our terms help to solve this problem ? Here is a way of trying to do so. Suicide, as we have noted , is self-inflicted death. Assistedsuicide should be compared 30 DEFINITIONS ANDMORALISSUES to the taking of the lethal pill by the patient. He cannot, we'll suppose, take it himself, and so he requests someone else to put the pill in his mouth. On this analysis, assisted suicide amounts merely to other-applied suicide, or "suicide-at-a-distance ," as it were. Hence, if suicide is permissible, we should also find assisted suicide permissible. Requested euthanasia, because it is requested by the patient, is fundamentally fulfilling the will of the patient. Suicide is motivated by a desire to eliminate suffering; it has the same end as euthanasia then: "easy death." Humans are capable of addressing moral questions independently . Invoking the category of assisted suicide suggests that this point may be pushed to the side; talk of requested euthanasia moves the separate responsibility of the agent or facilitator toward the center. Which way are we to go? A Parallel: The Epicurean Gambit The ancient hedonist Epicurus proposed to settle once and for...