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First Things First: Euthanasia and America's Problem of Individualism
| Article
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10822 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
Date : |
3 / 1993 |
1,174 Words |
| Author
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Ronald P. Hamel
Ronald P. Hamel is a senior associate at the Park Ridge Center
for the Study of Health, Faith, and Ethics in Chicago. He is
author of Choosing Death: Active Euthanasia, Religion, and
the Public Debate (Trinity Press International). |
The growing acceptance in this country of assisted suicide and active euthanasia (now frequently referred to as "physician aid-in-dying" or "assisted death") may well signal a grave and pervasive illness within the very fabric of our society. Efforts to legalize these practices, unfortunately, are likely to address only symptoms and not get at the underlying causes. Even discussions about them generally focus on why they are or are not legitimate responses to the pain and suffering associated with much terminal illness.
Few discussions bother to ask the question why. Why is such a profound shift occurring in Americans' attitudes toward assisted suicide and active euthanasia? What is that shift saying about us--about our beliefs and values; about how we live out lives together; about out attitudes toward fundamental human experiences such as suffering, finitude, dependency, and dying; about out moral and spiritual resources; about how we care for the dying? It is these kinds of questions that we should be discussing before we opt to legalize assisted death for the aging and terminally ill.
Rosemarie Tong, and Stephen Post in particular, both move in this direction. Toward the end of her discussion, Tong identifies two of the major underlying causes of growing interest in assisted death--the fear of "dying painfully and/- or lingering on in a highly incapacitated state." I would add to these two. Not only do people fear a prolonged, technologically supported dying process and the pain and suffering that might accompany that, but they also fear seeing changes in their physical appearance, becoming a burden to others, being isolated and abandoned, and losing control over their dying.
MEASURES TO EREDUCE THE CLAMOR FOR EUTHANASIA
Once causes are identified, it is then possible to direct various measures toward alleviating if not eliminating them. Most of the fears, anxieties, and problems associated with dying can be eases, but society as a whole and our health care system in particular are a long way from doing all that is possible to relieve the burdens of dying.
Tong rightly points to better pain management (as does Post). This is absolutely critical but not sufficient. Patients' emotional, psychological, social, and spiritual needs must also be addressed. Hospices have an excellent track record in this regard (in addition to pain control). Although hospices have become better known and more frequently used in recent years,
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