But some element of cool technical challenge is necessary, very often, in the patient's interest. But, as is so often the case, the higher the technology the easier it is to downplay the human personal aspect. There is fortunately an ethos of humanist common sense emerging in respect of the persistent vegetative state and the strident fuss made by the 'pro-life' party tends to be overridden both by the courts and by public opinion. To refuse to 'switch off' is neither more nor less 'playing God' than to decide to do so. Playing God is a vacuous phrase - even supposing that there is a god to be 'played'.
Matters are more serious when voluntary euthanasia is a practical issue for non-vegetative patients.
In this area there is a largely unsuspected potential for manipulating people as objects a potential that is at least as disturbing as the technician's temptation to view a terminally ill person as rather like an old car that he wishes to keep on the road - just to satisfy an ambition to show that he can do it. This subtle, and largely unsuspected, potential for manipulating people as objects arises in an activity that it s often thought to be the very epitome of the moral ideal. I refer to the work of the hospices. Anyone who argues for voluntary euthanasia must logically support the provision of hospices. The word voluntary is void unless the individual terminal patient has a right to allow death to come naturally, just as he has a right to procure death, and if the right to choose life be exercised then the patient deserves every comfort and support during the terminal stages however prolonged they may be.