The history of euthanasia (in the West) is well served by
University of Prince Edward Island historian Ian Dowbiggin. The book is easy to read, but the topic is
very difficult to deal with or write about, and this reviewer took a little
step back before offering an assessment.
Towards the end of his book Dowbiggin tilts against euthanasia pointing
to the potential for abuse, for example in the Netherlands, but we perhaps are
getting ahead of ourselves.
Let us begin at the beginning: in ancient Greece and Rome
euthanasia was accepted practice, and Dowbiggin suggests that the provision
against euthanasia in the Hippocratic Oath “was a kind of protest against the
frequency with which euthanasia was practiced.” [1]
The brief assessment of this ethical code is questionable, and the Hippocratic
Oath could have been discussed in terms of its many other provisions, as well. But Dowbiggin does clearly explain the
Christian reaction to euthanasia, using Saint Paul’s precept that followers be
“obedient unto death” (Philippians 2:5-11).[2] Christians are supposed to consider
Christ’s suffering on the cross worthy of emulation, and it provides believers
with an opportunity with redemption.
Dowbiggin’s work is normally very concise and what follows
his statements on the Christian era is a rapid-fire intellectual history of
suicide, combined with periodic examples of tired prose: “as the century wore
on”[3]
…”as the eighteenth century came to a close”[4]
…”as the nineteenth century drew to a close.”[5]
It is almost as if Dowbiggin’s centuries are personages, due to die once their
allotted time is up. My other complaint
is that judging from footnotes the book seems almost entirely derived from
secondary sources. The apparent absence
of primary sources deprives the book to some extent of a certain literary
richness.
The growing secularization of society, brought about in part
by the eighteenth century Enlightenment and mid-nineteenth century Darwinism,
had contributed much to the euthanasia movement, but not until it recovered
from the experiences of Nazi Germany.
And it is worth noting that modern day Germany still has no euthanasia
law. The word “euthanasia” is also now
so historically tainted that the movement could not get anywhere until the
“right to die” term replaced it, notably beginning in the 1960’s. Dowbiggin also discusses the path breaking (and
underground) role AIDS had on euthanasia, as well as Karen Ann Quinlan, Dr.
Kevorkian and a whole host of other events and personalities.
What he needs to articulate more consistently is the role
the “60’s generation” had on the movement. And in an effort to examine the role
of generational change, let us look to Canada’s Supreme Court decisions on the
matter. What happened between the Sue
Rodriguez case of 1993 and the Kay Carter case in 2015? In 1993 there was a Supreme Court split decision
(5:4) against assisted suicide. In 2015 it was a
unanimously endorsed court decision in favour of assisted death under certain
restricted circumstances. Since
Rodriguez the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms had not altered, but
there was something of a ‘sea change’ in so-called popular opinion, aided by
the fact that the “60’s generation” got older – over two decades older.
The baby boomers which had originally asserted women’s
rights, reproductive rights, civil rights (and much more) now – as they greyed
- began asserting the right to die, either for themselves or for their
parents. Look to the ages of B.C.’s
right to die champions: Sue Rodriguez was born in 1950, a boomer; Gloria Taylor
was born in 1948, also a boomer. And Kay
Carter, who ended her life in Switzerland, was born in 1921; judging from her year
of birth it is likely she was the parent to a boomer-age daughter.
If one looks to the ages of our Supreme Court Justices,
almost all of them are boomers except the philosophically trained Chief Justice
Beverley McLaughlin (who decided in favour of Sue Rodriguez in 1993) born in
1943, about 3 years too old to be an official boomer. The youngest on the Supreme Court is Justice
Russell Brown, born in 1965, definitely not a boomer, but I wonder if he would
have been willing to be the only holdout against an otherwise unanimous
decision. There are three Justices from
Quebec on Canada’s Supreme Court, and they are on the tail end of the boomer-age
generation but they come from a highly secularized province (since the Quiet
Revolution of the early 1960’s).[6] Quebec already legalized doctor assisted
death in 2014: if these Justices had ruled against euthanasia in the Kay Carter
case they would have been out of step with their own home province. In other words, the decision to legalize
assisted death was already culturally more acceptable to the Supreme Court
Justices – and to Canadians, regardless of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms as
it has been interpreted.
But that does not mean it is right. Many may argue that we have a made-in-Canada
solution to problem with the 2015 decision and its restrictions, but euthanasia
is open to abuse, and history demonstrates this, as does Dowbiggin in his brief
book. In the Netherlands for example
children ages 12 and over can get euthanized with the approval of their
parents. And one can do it without
parental consent from the age of 16 and older. [7] But euthanasia in the Netherlands does not
turn on terminal illness alone – there can be exclusive emotional reasons as
well, which, it is important to note, can change over time, and with treatment. In other words present-day euthanasia in the
Netherlands amounts to a sort of business-like activity, and not all of it is
above board.
In Canada a joint House of Commons-Senate committee has
already spoken of broadening euthanasia to include all hospitals (regardless of faith basis), psychiatric cases and
“mature” minors (16 years old and older) – highly irresponsible steps in the
wrong direction. Are we not now on that
slippery slope? Is not that popular
consensus crystalized in the Supreme Court decision in itself now a form of arbitrary
authority? Or to put it another way: how
can one court decision ‘change everything’ in our relationship with the medical
profession - and is this healthy? What
if doctors resign from their positions - just one - and medical services become
even more limited to the general public?
We see the generation that experimented with marijuana now
brings us euthanasia, today known as the right to die. More specifically the ideas of free “choice”
and personal “autonomy” are hidden within a broader range of human rights even
as they infringe on the public purse and medical ethics. Put another way: ironic to the counter-culture
generation of the 1960’s euthanasia threatens to become the latest incarnation
of Margaret Thatcher’s claim that “there is no such thing as society”. Instead each of us will soon be considered a
little suicide abiding our time.
[1]
Ian Dowbiggin, A Concise History of
Euthanasia: Life, Death, God, Medicine (Toronto: Rowman & Littlefield
Publishers, 2007), p. 11.
[2] Ibid., p. 14.
[3] Ibid., p. 29
[4] Ibid., p. 35.
[5] Ibid., p. 53
[6] Canada’s
Supreme Court Justices from Quebec are: Richard Wagner (born in 1957), Clément
Gascon (born in 1960) and Suzanne Côté (born in 1958).
[7]
Dowbiggin, A Concise History of Ethanasia,
p. 143.
