Euthanasia

• Non Treatment Decision sometimes known as passive euthanasia 


  Decision medical professionals make to withhold or withdraw medical treatment or life support that is keeping a person alive because they are not going to get better, or because the person asks them to.
• Active Euthanasia

  Deliberate action performed by a third party to kill a person for example lethal injection. Illegal in the UK
• Sanctity of Life 


  idea that life is intrinsically sacred or has such worth that it is not considered within the power of a human being
• Quality of Life

  way of weighing the extrinsic experience of life, that affects or justifies whether or not it is worth continuing life
• Personhood

  quality of human life that makes it worthy - usually linked to certain higher capacities
• Autonomy and the right to die:


  idea that human freedom should extend to decide the time and manner of death
• Voluntary euthanasia 


  this applies when a person’s life is ended painlessly by their own choice
• Non-voluntary euthanasia 


  applies when a person is unable to express their wish to die but there are reasonable grounds for ending their life painlessly —> chose by another person
• Dignity

  the worth of quality of life which can be linked to sanctity of freedom
• Palliative care


  end of life care to make the person's remaining moments of life as comfortable as possible
• Involuntary Euthanasia


  where a person is killed against their wishes, for example when the Nazis were killing disable people
• Legality:

  • illegal in Britain and many other nations
  • a doctor or anyone who deliberately end or assists in the ending of someones life can be charged with manslaughter or murder
• Where is euthanasia legal?

  Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Canada, Colombia, New Zealand, Spain, Australia and some states in the United States such as Ohio
• Why do some people want Euthanasia legalised in the UK?

  • some believe that the quality of life of the suffering person also matters highly
  • they believe that if a persons if a person's quality of life is very low then they should be allowed to end their life
  • ending a life in this situation is justified
  • Two-thirds of Britons support legalising assisted dying
• “Over himself, over his body and mind the individual is sovereign”


  John Stuart Mill ‘On Liberty’ 1859
• “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honour God with your bodies.” 


  St Paul in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20
• Sanctity of life:

  • supreme intrinsic specialness of human life
  • Genesis said that we were made in the image of God --> imago dei
  • human sacrifices were stopped as Christianity saw it as sinful and immoral -> stopped by Jesus' sacrifice
  • we have dignity
  • God created human life, only God has the right to end it
• So God created mankind in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”


  Genesis 1:27 --> sanctity of life
• There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the

  heavens, a time to be born and a time to die

  Ecclesiastes 3 1-2 => shows the sanctity of life
• The story of Job shows the sanctity of life, this is through the suffering of Job and his family endure is accepted for the happiness he experiences
• “Thou shalt not kill (murder)”


  6/10 commandments -> Sanctity of life
• However, the Bible also shows passages that go against the Sanctity of life
• Sodom and Gomorrah: against the Sanctity of Life (Genesis 19:1-29)

  • men threatened to rape 2 visitors (angels) -> Lot tried to protect them
  • the angels told Lot and his family to flee --> he did
  • Lord sent burning sulfur onto the town
  • “No, my friends. Don’t do this wicked thing. Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them."
  • "Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the Lord out of the heavens"
  • "like smoke from a furnace"
• The Flood: (Genesis 6:5-22 7:1-24 8:1-22)

  • Noah's ark
  • killed all the people --> accept Noah
  • Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made
  • Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died.
• The death of the first born Egyptians: (Exodus 11 12:1-36)

  • plague sent to kill the first borns --> killed the Pharaoh's son
  • "Now the Lord had said to Moses, “I will bring one more plague on Pharaoh and on Egypt. After that, he will let you go from here, and when he does, he will drive you out completely."
  • "Every firstborn son in Egypt will die, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sits on the throne, to the firstborn son of the female slave" --> said by Moses
  • "he will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over that doorway"
• Weaknesses in the Sanctity of Life:

  • although sanctity of life is important in judging the value of life, there are other principles that should also be included, such as Jesus’ emphasis on compassion. The problem with the strong sanctity of life view is that it allows unnecessary suffering and is uncompassionate. Perhaps meaning that Quality of Life is more important
  • However, although the Bible does have the theme of compassion, that doesn’t mean it can be used to overrule the sanctity of life.
• Discussion about the Sanctity of Life are centred around a number of associated ideas about Euthanasia:

  • the ultimate taboo
  • status of life is undermined
  • life is undermined socially
  • perhaps theres another way
• The Quality of Life:

  • idea that human life has to possess certain attributes to have value. e.g. mental/physical capability
  • the experience of living life
  • Deterioration of life means that euthanasia might be the best option
  • Humans being should be able to life dignified lives and end life with dignity --> most compassionate thing to do
  • Peter Singer believes the quality of life to be an important factor in euthanasia -> non-voluntary euthanasia for babies whose potential quality of life is low, such as due to being born with an incurable condition like spine abifida
• Hippocratic Oath: based on the ideas of the Greek physician who believes that is it is wrong for Doctors to allow euthanasia
• Peter Singer believed that it should link to personhood
• Quality of life and Personhood:

  • the extent to which a life has some quality about it is often linked to the extent to which there is personhood
  • higher functions and higher capacity --> awareness of self, others, the world and the will and ability to act are the most fundamental features of human life
  • spectrum of consciousness --> how an individual connects with others
• Quality of Life and Personhood:

  • Peter Singer -> Not all humans are persons. Singer argued that belief in the sanctity of life of members of our species (humans) was based on ‘Christian domination of European thought’, especially belief in an afterlife and that God had ownership of us.
  • Singer argues that if we think about what we find wrong with killing someone, it is that it deprives them of the life they want to continue live. voluntarily asked for by a competent adult, then it would not be wrong because they don’t want to continue living their life.
• Quality of Life and the slippery slope argument vs personhood:

  • Archbishop Anthony Fisher makes the slippery slope argument against the quality-of-life view, arguing that wherever euthanasia is legalised, it is extended to more and more people. He points out that in Holland euthanasia was legalised for the terminally ill but 10 year later was legalised for babies in cases of severe illness
  • Fisher further argues that if Euthanasia is allowed for quality of life, then some elderly or otherwise vulnerable people might be tempted to die because they feel like a burden
• Quality of Life and the slippery slope argument vs personhood:

  • Singer responds that people who receive euthanasia in Oregon are disproportionately white, educated and not particularly elderly, so euthanasia does not especially target vulnerable people
• Quality of Life and the Autonomy and the Right to die:

  • individuals should have autonomy to choose
  • expect to have control over our bodies and this should allow us to chose our own manner of death and time
  • permissible for a person to help to die --> not wrong to help the dying die
  • indirect threats to others
  • reasonable limitations
  • The deontological (absolutist) view of autonomy
• Quality of Life and the Autonomy and the Right to die: cont'd

  • Nozick is a libertarian, meaning he thinks people have an absolute right to do whatever they want, so long as they are not harming others, no matter the situation -> but people will choose euthanasia for short-sighted reasons such as when in the temporary grip of negative emotion
  • coherently adopt a consequentialist view of autonomy, which is to pair it with rationality
• John Stuart Mill argued that in matters that do not concern others, individuals should have full autonomy.
• Voluntary Euthanasia:

  • the Hippocratic Oath --> is it against this type of Euthanasia
  • Killing a patient seems opposed to what a doctor should do
  • Jonathan Glover (Causing Deaths and Saving Lives, 1977) -> several factors to should be considered before deciding what to do
  • often requested in very difficult circumstances and is often the focus of campaigns for legal change
  • physical deterioration will at some point make it impossible to easily chose suicide
  • morally permissible \
• Jonathan Glover several factors before deciding:

  1. helper should be convinced the decision is serious
  2. helper should think that the decision is reasonable
  3. circumstances in which the request comes need considering
• Jonathan Glover several side effects:

  1. allowing voluntary euthanasia could lead to involuntary euthanasia
  2. discouraged from going to hospital for treatment
  3. detrimentally affects end-of-life palliative care