Euthanasia: politics and practice.

Canada has no law concerning abortion. It has, in effect, abortion on demand. Today it is also threatened with the prospect of legislation permitting assisted suicide and euthanasia. We will then have man-made death at the beginning and man-made death at the end of life.

"Whose body is it anyway?"

In the last thirty years attitudes have changed. A few years ago, a physician in Timmins, Ontario, gave a terminally ill patient a lethal dose of potassium chloride. The physician received a suspended sentence. Similarly, Jean Bush of Hamilton, Ontario, fatally stabbed her eighty-one-year-old husband who had Alzheimer's disease. She also received a suspended sentence.

A woman in Victoria, B.C., Sue Rodriguez, committed assisted suicide. She received wide-spread Canadian media support before and after the event. `Death-Net,' a service that offers computer information on suicide, originated in Victoria, B.C. In 1995, a special committee of the Canadian Senate recommended the legalization of euthanasia under certain conditions.

Why is this happening? Until recently the life of an innocent person was regarded as inviolable. People accepted that everyone possesses an immortal soul and that God has given us our life. Therefore we have no moral right to ask others to shorten it by euthanasia or assisted suicide. Even Socrates (470 - 399 before Christ) said that "Man is like a soldier sent by God to fulfil a mission, and hence is not lord over life and does not possess a right to kill himself and desert his mission."

But today sentiments are different. Many of the general public and politicians, doctors, lawyers and the media, have weakened in their belief in God. As a result people think of themselves as morally autonomous. "Whose body is it anyway?" asked Sue Rodriguez.

There is a popular belief that the end justifies the means and that there are no kinds of actions which are morally wrong under any and all circumstances. (1)

In other words, the morality of to-day's `liberal society' is not based on objective truth. Rather, it is a moral relativism, varying with circumstances, persons and cultures. Moreover, the public perceives the law of the land (unless and until it becomes unpopular) as having the force of moral law.

As to objective moral truth, the `liberal' mind is incapable of dealing with it. As Father Richard John Neuhaus put it, "the pitting of freedom against truth is the original sin of liberalism that we must oppose. The truth about freedom is that there is no freedom without truth." (2) That's how today Canada's culture has already become a culture of death.

Change hearts

Can we replace the culture of death by a culture of life?

It is never too late for a change of heart. We may have to endure media campaigns promoting euthanasia and assisted suicide as a human right and duty. People will endorse this with euphemisms about `caring', `commitment' and `compassion.' Will our physicians resist the power of the state, we may ask, as did the Dutch against their Nazi bullies? Already we are experiencing non-mandatory, free investigation of all pregnancies in Ontario. Extensive ultrasound and biological diagnosis of congenital and genetic diseases of the unborn is common practice. This is a `search and destroy' mission, since the outcome is frequently deliberate abortion.

What kind of liberty do we want? "But, Smerdiakov," says old Karamazov, "if God does not exist, then everything is permitted" (Dostoyevsky).

The famous historian of medieval Christian philosophy, Etienne Gilson, forecast the following: "What a prodigious liberation! Man knows henceforward that he can do anything without the echo in his ear of the redoubtable summons of the sovereign judge, `Adam, where art thou?' There is no longer any judge, save Adam himself, who, since he alone makes the law, alone applies it, without knowing yet that man is for himself the hardest of masters, and that, by a comparison with the yoke which he lays on his own shoulders, that of the Lord was light to bear." (3)

What should we do?

What should we do about the politics, and what should we do about stopping the practice, of euthanasia? With respect to the politics of euthanasia, our first task is to witness to the truth. Therefore we should enter into discourse with others and we must act, in public and in private, in accordance with our beliefs.

The harrowing harvest of self-inflicted disease alone should show us that we are not biologically autonomous. Nor are we morally autonomous. "Revelation teaches that the power to decide what is good and what is evil does not belong to man, but to God alone." (4)

It goes without saying that our communication with others must always be courteous. As Pope John Paul II states: "The Council's guidelines--set forth in Gaudium et spes and other documents--of open, respectful and cordial dialogue, yet accompanied by careful discernment and courageous witness to the truth, remain valid and call us to a greater commitment." (5)

Our hope is that eventually we can bring our fellow Canadians to realize that, "In the end, only a morality which acknowledges certain norms as valid, always and for everyone, with no exceptions, can guarantee the ethical foundation of social existence, both on the national and international levels." (6)

Some definitions

With respect to preventing euthanasia, the Ontario Conference of Catholic Bishops' message on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide of January 1996 is a help to us in facing this challenge to our faith.

* Euthanasia: it is a deliberate action or deliberate failure to act, that causes a person's death, with the intention of ending his or her suffering.

* Assisted suicide: it is a deliberate act of helping another person to end his or her life, for example, by supplying drugs or some other means to commit suicide.

* Actions which are not suicide:

1. Respecting a person's wish to refuse or stop treatment that is of no benefit.

2. Withdrawing or withholding treatment from a person who is dying when the burden of treatment outweighs its benefit. However, the fact that a person goes on living as a result of treatment must not in itself be regarded as a burden of treatment.

3. Giving drugs necessary to relieve pain even if an unintended effect is to shorten a dying person's life.

Our dignity lies in our origin and destiny. We are created out of love and for love. As death approaches we make our peace with God and with our family. Broken relationships are renewed; financial and other obligations are fulfilled. The moment of death is often one of anguish and other suffering. It is, however, a sharing in Christ's passion and a union with His redeeming sacrifice, in which suffering and love are united. When we extend to the sick and the dying the signs of God's love, we have entered into the suffering of Christ.

Care of the Dying

Palliative care of the dying provided by a team of health care professionals and volunteers should be available in every hospital. The World Health Organization estimates that on any given day more than three million people struggle with chronic pain from cancer alone. Half of terminal cancer patients spend their final days in agony.

The American Medical Association lays much of the blame for this on a medical profession that "treats to the bitter end rather than assuaging suffering." Unfortunately, narcotics like morphine lose their efficacy over time, and the patient may feel no effect from a dose a thousand times stronger than needed to kill a normal person.

Of great promise is a newly discovered drug, SNX lll. It was developed at Stanford University by Dr. William Brose and was derived from the venom of a killer sea snail, the cone snail. It has relieved the pain of many cancer patients who are beyond the help of conventional medicine. It is relatively inexpensive, and the patients develop neither tolerance nor addiction. (7)

Finally, a priest should be available from the local parishes, although this may become increasingly difficult because of their declining number. The laity of the parishes should organize visits to the sick. Relatives and friends should pray with the dying person and comfort him or her. The dying should never be left alone, feeling that they are nothing but an unwanted burden to others, for `precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of His saints.'

Dr. John Shea is a retired diagnostic radiologist and a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Canada. He is a past president of the Catholic Doctors' Guild of Toronto and a co-founder of the Canadian Fellowship of Catholic Scholars.

(1) . Study Guide to Euthanasia and Clinical Practice; The Report of the Working Party. Teresa Iglesias, The Linacre Centre, London. 1984.

(2) . "Why We Can Get Along." First Things, Neuhaus, February 1996.

(3) . The Terrors of the Year 2000. The University of St. Michael's College, Toronto, 1984.

(4) . John Paul II. The Splendor of truth, 1993, No. 35.

(5) . John Paul II, Tertio Millenio Adveniente, 1994.

(6) . Splendor of Truth, No. 97.

(7) . Scientific American, February, 1996, pp. 28-30.