Our black-and-white system of public debate ignores that we are often pushed beyond clear concepts of right and wrong, writes JOHN WATERS.
LOOKS LIKE we're off again in search of final moral resolutions, this time in the context of mercy killing and euthanasia. The way we talk about such issues suggests that only now, in the enlightenment of the present, is there any possibility of arriving at a mature and progressive decision, as though previous generations were utterly deprived of moral clarity or human feeling.
Our black-and-white system of public discussion seeks to address such intractables by identifying two clear opposing factions and pursuing answers by setting them at each other's throats in a fight to the finish. Underlying these discussions is the notion that we can establish a definitive perspective for the rest of time, now that we have dismantled the ignorance and obscurantism that stood between us and the light.
But human nature does not change. Nor, fundamentally, do the dilemmas that confront humans, even though we live in an age when science throws up increasingly complex ethical conundrums. The previously clear principle that it is not the business of man to venture into the realm of God seems to unravel in a world in which life can be artificially extended by manmade technology. Since this artificial propping-up of otherwise unsustainable life is itself an intervention in the life-and-death arena, it seems inevitable that an earthly force or agency must decide where the new lines should be drawn.
The word euthanasia is often, in these discussions, confused with mercy killing and assisted suicide. Euthanasia is generally understood to mean the direct intervention by a doctor to end a human life, and remains illegal even in societies where assisted suicide is legal and relatively commonplace. In assisted suicide, the key ethical question relates to the competence of the patient concerning his own life and death, and all such cases have their individual dynamics. In a society where suicide has been decriminalised, this question becomes less straightforward when the patient expresses a wish to bring an end to his life.
Euthanasia, since it involves a society making decisions about its general approach and fundamental norms, is infinitely more problematic. A wrong move here might enable unspeakable horrors to be visited on future generations.
The problem is not just that these issues tend to get conflated, but also that the circumstances and emotions in particular cases can become the focus of a debate concerning the overall situation, distorting and colouring the picture.
Our system of public discussion rarely countenances that it is possible on certain issues to be of two minds, to have both a personal and a political view, and to hold these simultaneously without any sense of contradiction.
For example, while I personally remain opposed to any relaxation of the prohibition on assisted suicide, I would be unwilling to deliver a similarly absolute judgment on an individual who had aided another person in putting an end to an intolerable life.
I believe that the principle that man should not usurp the role of God is a sound and reliable touchstone, but the nature of life is that we can sometimes be placed in situations that push us beyond clear concepts of right and wrong.
I have never been in a position where such an intervention was requested or necessary, and I do not know how I would react if I was. Based on my experiences with friends who were dying in extreme distress and pain, I can certainly envisage situations in which I might at some future point be confronted by circumstances which might dissolve any sense of certainty I currently enjoy.
By the same token, I hope I never reach a pitch of desperation whereby I might ask another human being to assist me in this context, but I just don't know.
None of this, however, means that I would wish my own or another's painful need to become the instrument of an ill-advised change in the culture of this society or the law of the land. To avoid abuses or a diminution of the value of human life, I would like my society to continue to insist that any such intervention by me or on my behalf continues to be wrong in principle and, if necessary, to call me or others to account for any breach of this principle. I believe that, in general, we can trust the jury system to take a broad and compassionate view of the extenuating circumstances in individual cases.
The conventional public conversation would characterise this as a contradictory position. But is it not merely our present unhealthily ideological culture that causes us to regard as dubious the idea of believing one thing and, in certain circumstances, doing another? Society has a duty to maintain certain principles, of which the right to life is the most central. The imperative to preserve this absolute value does not mean that, at an individual human level, it is not possible for other choices to be comprehended as occurring in the heat of particular moments, in the context of human difficulty, pain, weakness, compassion and confusion.