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that people give some states a negative value - that is, they |
indicate that they would prefer to be dead than to survive in |
that condition. Apparently, the life of the elderly woman described |
by Sir Gustav Nossal was, in the opinion of the matron |
of the nursing home, the doctor, and the relatives, not worth |
214 |
Taking Life: Humans |
living. If we can set criteria for deciding who is to be allowed |
to die and who is to be given treatment, then why should it be |
wrong to set criteria, perhaps the same criteria, for deciding |
who should be killed? |
So it is not the attitude that some lives are not worth living |
that marks out the Nazis from normal people who do not commit |
mass murder. What then is it? Is it that they went beyond |
passive euthanasia, and practised active euthanasia? Many, |
like Lorber, worry about the power that a program of active |
euthanasia could place in the hands of an unscrupulous government. |
This worry is not negligible, but should not be |
exaggerated. Unscrupulous governments already have within |
their power more plausible means of getting rid of their opponents |
than euthanasia administered by doctors on medical |
grounds. 'Suicides' can be arranged. 'Accidents' can occur. If |
necessary, assassins can be hired. Our best defence against such |
possibilities is to do everything possible to keep our government |
democratic, open, and in the hands of people who would not |
seriously wish to kill their opponents. Once the wish is serious |
enough, governments will find a way, whether euthanasia is |
legal or not. |
In fact the Nazis did not have a euthanasia program, in the |
proper sense of the word. Their so-called euthanasia program |
was not motivated by concern for the suffering of those killed. |
If it had been, why would the Nazis have kept their operations |
secret, deceived relatives about the cause of death ofthose killed, |
and exempted from the program certain privileged classes, such |
as veterans of the armed services, or relatives of the euthanasia |
staff? Nazi 'euthanasia' was never voluntary, and often was |
involuntary rather than non-voluntary. 'Doing away with useless |
mouths' - a phrase used by those in charge - gives a better |
idea ofthe objectives of the program than 'mercy-killing'. Both |
racial origin and ability to work were among the factors considered |
in the selection of patients to be killed. It was the Nazi |
belief in the importance of maintaining a pure Aryan Yolk - a |
215 |
Practical Ethics |
somewhat mystical entity that was thought of as more important |
than mere individuals lives - that made both the so-called euthanasia |
program and later the entire holocaust possible. Proposals |
for the legalisation of euthanasia, in contrast, are based |
on respect for autonomy and the goal of avoiding pointless |
suffering. |
This essential difference in the aims of Nazi 'euthanasia' and |
modem proposals may be granted, but the slippery slope argument |
could still be defended as a way of suggesting that the |
present strict rule against the direct killing of innocent human |
beings serves a useful purpose. However arbitrary and unjustifiable |
the distinctions between human and non-human, fetus |
and infant, killing and allowing to die may be, the rule against |
direct killing of innocent humans at least marks a workable line. |
The distinction between an infant whose life may be worth |
living, and one whose life definitely is not, is much more difficult |
to draw. Perhaps people who see that certain kinds of human |
beings are killed in certain circumstances may go on to conclude |
that it is not wrong to kill others not very different from the |
first kind. So will the boundary of acceptable killing be pushed |
gradually back? In the absence of any logical stopping place, |
will the outcome be the loss of all respect for human life? |
If our laws were altered so that anyone could carry out an |
act of euthanasia, the absence of a clear line between those who |
might justifiably be killed and those who might not would pose |
a real danger; but that is not what advocates of euthanasia |
propose. If acts of euthanasia could only be carried out by a |
member of the medical profession, with the concurrence of a |
second doctor, it is not likely that the propensity to kill would |
spread unchecked throughout the community. Doctors already |
have a good deal of power over life and death, through their |
ability to withhold treatment. There has been no suggestion that |
doctors who begin by allowing severely disabled infants to die |
from pneumonia will move on to withhold antibiotics from |
racial minorities or political extremists. In fact legalising eu- |
216 |
Taking Life: Humans |
thanasia might well act as a check on the power of doctors since |
it would bring into the open and under the scrutiny of another |
doctor what some doctors now do on their own initiative and |
in secret. |
There is, anyway, little historical evidence to suggest that a |
permissive attitude towards the killing of one category of human |
beings leads to a breakdown of restrictions against killing other |
humans. Ancient Greeks regularly killed or exposed infants, but |
appear to have been at least as scrupulous about taking the lives |
of their fellow-citizens as medieval Christians or modem Americans. |
In traditional Eskimo societies it was the custom for a |
man to kill his elderly parents, but the murder of a normal |
healthy adult was almost unheard of. I mention these practices |
not to suggest that they should be imitated, but only to indicate |
that lines can be drawn at places different from where we now |
draw them. If these societies could separate human beings into |
different categories without transferring their attitudes from one |
group to another, we with our more sophisticated legal systems |
and greater medical knowledge should be able to do the same. |
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