Facts
- Euthanasia is the intentional killing of a patient by act or omission as part of their ‘medical treatment’ when the patient’s life is felt not to be worth living.
- Euthanasia is currently illegal in the UK and virtually all countries of the world, but there are strong pressures to make it legal.
- Supporters and opponents of euthanasia alike have argued that the courts, in a small number of cases following the Bland judgment, have allowed euthanasia involving patients in a persistent vegetative state (PVS).1 This claim is contested by the Government and the British Medical Association (BMA).
- On 12 May 2006 the House of Lords blocked the latest attempt to legalise euthanasia. Peers voted by 148 to100 against the Second Reading of the ‘Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill’.2
- The Bill, put forward by Lord Joffe, sought to allow ‘competent’ terminally ill adults to end their lives with an injection or medication supplied by a doctor. The Bill was opposed by many, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, and Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales.3
- In June 2006 the British Medical Association voted overwhelmingly against legalising physician assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia.4 The Royal College of General Practitioners and the Royal College of Physicians also oppose legalising euthanasia.5
Biblical arguments
The sanctity of life
Life is sacred from conception (see Sanctity of Life). Euthanasia involves the killing of human beings.
Euthanasia is intentional killing of the innocent and so contravenes the Sixth Commandment : “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13). This applies even in the case of suicide.
The image of God
The fundamental prohibition on killing, and the basis for it, is set out in Genesis 9:6: “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God has God made man”. Our significance, and so the claim to protection, derives not from our ‘quality of life’ or gifts and abilities, but from our status as being made in God’s image.
Our lives are not our own
The Bible is clear that God is our creator. Human life is not ‘our property’. We may not just ‘dispense’ with it. As Job said: “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away” (Job 1:21). Our lives are meant for the service of God. It is not for us to ‘take’ life, even our own.
It was for fallen humanity that God sent “his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). All men are created beings who owe worship and thanks to their creator (Romans 1:21). In that sense our lives are not our own.
Duty to care
The Bible strongly encourages mankind to care for his fellow man. We are to love our neighbour as ourselves (Matthew 22:37-40). Jesus also taught that a stranger in trouble was our neighbour (Luke 10: 25-37).
Key points
Voluntary euthanasia leads to involuntary euthanasia
Voluntary euthanasia for some in practice soon becomes compulsory euthanasia for others. The slippery slope can be well illustrated by considering what has gone on in Holland.
Official statistics show that in 2001 there were 4,664 cases of medical intervention to shorten life in Holland, representing 3.3% of all deaths. Yet of these there was no explicit request for euthanasia in 938 cases. Thus 20% of all medically assisted deaths were involuntary.6
Holland has allowed voluntary euthanasia for some years, but the Dutch Government has acknowledged that there is a serious problem with involuntary euthanasia. Furthermore, in 2004 the Dutch Government called for an investigation into the non-reporting of euthanasia by doctors.7 One study suggested only 54% of cases were reported in 2001.8
Recently, a group of senior Dutch doctors formally reported themselves for killing 22 terminally ill newborn babies. They called for the Dutch Government to legalise infant euthanasia.9 This shows just how slippery the slope is when society accepts euthanasia is acceptable.
Euthanasia is wide open to abuse
By definition the key witness to an act of euthanasia is always dead. People who feel uncertain about whether their lives are worth living are vulnerable to being manipulated.
Profound damage to the doctor-patient relationship
Legalising euthanasia would have a profound effect on the relationship between doctors and their patients. Instead of only having a healing or caring role, doctors become killers once euthanasia is legalised.
Dame Cicely Saunders, founder of the Hospice Movement, said of supporters of euthanasia: “I don't think they can have a law that makes that [euthanasia] possible without undermining the needs of a great many other vulnerable people. I think you can’t have a freedom that takes freedom away from others.”10
Suffering can be treated without euthanasia
There is a clear distinction in medicine between, on the one hand, taking action with the specific intention of shortening life, euthanasia; and, on the other hand, withholding medical treatment because that treatment is of no further benefit to the patient or is burdensome to the patient.
It is also acceptable to administer pain-relieving drugs when the primary desired effect is to relieve the pain, but where there is a secondary and undesirable effect of shortening life. Such cases are said to be examples of ‘double effect’.
Palliative care
With modern advances in the care of the terminally ill there is no need for such patients to suffer uncontrolled physical pain or discomfort. It is essential that expertise in palliative care is disseminated throughout the NHS.
The suggestion that the only way to kill the pain is to kill the patient is simply wrong.
The UK currently leads the world in the provision of hospice or palliative care. Any legalisation of euthanasia would discourage further advances in this area.
- 1Harris, J, ‘Euthanasia and the Value of Life’, in Keown, J (Ed.) Euthanasia Examined, Cambridge University Press, 1995, page 18: “Despite valiant attempts both by the three judges of the Court of Appeal and by the five judges in the House of Lords to pretend otherwise, their decision was in effect one permitting non-voluntary euthanasia.” John Harris is a supporter of euthanasia.
- 2House of Lords, Hansard, 12 May 2006, col. 1295
- 3The Guardian, 13 May 2006; The Times, 13 May 2006
- 4British Medical Association, Press Release, Doctors Vote to Oppose Physician-Assisted Suicide, 29 June 2006
- 5The Guardian, 10 May 2006; The Independent, 30 June 2006
- 6Statistical Yearbook of the Netherlands 2004, Statistics Netherlands, April 2004, page 102
- 7Netherlands Government Press Release, State Secretary Ross Queries Euthanasia Figures, 27 May 2004
- 8Sheldon, T, ‘Dutch Reporting of Euthanasia Cases Falls – Despite Legal Reporting Requirements’, British Medical Journal, 328, 2004, page 1336
- 9The Daily Telegraph, 24 January 2005, The Guardian, 21 December 2004
- 10Living Dangerously Workbook accompanying the Living Dangerously video, from Care, March 1992
