‘Thought’ for the Day
More on the ‘no you may not die until God says you may’ line of cant. This time from Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks on Thought (thought?) for the Day.
Nine years ago my brothers, my mother and I saw my father go through five major operations in his eighties. It was almost unbearably painful to see one who was once so strong and upright, fight a long, slow, losing battle with death. Yet I can’t begin to imagine what it would have been like if he, or we on his behalf, had been given the choice to bring that last day closer. He was a proud man who hated being a burden to others. How easy it would have been for him to spare us those final tormenting days. I can see him doing it. Yet he would have been so wrong – because, more than anything else, we wanted to be there with him in his suffering giving back some of the care he’d given us when we were young.
That’s meant to be good – to be in some way compassionate, kind, sensitive – in some way that rises above, or digs deeper than, the possible desires of the person in question. It’s meant to be good, but it’s horrible. It’s horrible that he’s glad his father didn’t have the choice to end the torment. It’s horrible that he’s glad his father wasn’t able to do what would have been easy – that he doesn’t think ‘ease’ may be desirable when the alternative is torment. It’s horrible that he apparently thinks (although he may just have expressed it badly) that what he and his brothers wanted should outweigh what his father might have wanted. It’s horrible that he skirts the issue of whether his father would have preferred to end his own suffering for his own sake.
The doctors were heroic in treating his pain. All of us, doctors, nurses, the family, my father himself, were united in cherishing life, leaving it to a will larger than ours to decide when it should end. There are some choices we should not be allowed to make, and of these the most fateful is to decide that a life is not worth living. My father was able to leave this world gently because he was spared that choice. Better a society that strives for life, than one that offers us the choice of death.
Gently? Because he was spared that choice? Where does the ‘because’ come in? What’s ‘gentle’ about for instance suffocating to death, the way Diane Pretty did? Or dying in horrible ever-increasing pain? Is that leaving the world ‘gently’? Is a society that ‘strives’ to force continued life on other people who don’t want it because they are in pain or totally disabled and helpless, better than one that allows them the choice to end it? Well, possibly. There are arguments to be had – secular ones. But dragging in the ‘will larger than ours’ (whose? where? what’s its phone number? what’s its email address? how do we ask it for a review?) doesn’t help. Thinking it does can motivate people to produce some horrible arguments, that boil down to ‘my father might have preferred to end his life himself and avoid the last few days of pain, but fortunately he wasn’t able to make that choice.’
” Better a society that strives for life, than one that offers us the choice of death.”
That is such empty rhetoric. It may sound stirring and noble but when you examine it closely, it turns out to be empty, vacant, meaningless. In fact, we do through our social and individual investments, make very real decisions about how to long to prolong life. And to suggest that we don’t or shouldn’t ignores the way we act.
I have to admit, Olivia. This one of the most awful things you have ever posted. So pious, so certain, so smug.
I understand, although I am ready to be corrected, that the reality in Britain today is that your best hope is for a compassionate GP or a friend who is willing to put themselves on the line.
Anecdotally, medical friends tell me that many or most GP’s turn a blind eye or actively assist in euthanasia/assisted suicide at least occasionally. Courts are almost always forgiving of cases that come before them of those who have the courage of love.
It’s far from satisfactory, and there must be many with neither benefit who end in unspeakable misery within the system. But if he believers have their way we are are heading towards the sort of vileness that accompanied the Schiavo case, with the righteous demanding their convictions be paramount.
So I suppose we have to formalise death. Let’s do it right.
The first (or second person – I can’t recall) to be treated with anti-biotics after a brief recovery died from an infected scratch because there weren’t enough to treat him properly.
Is this what the rabbi would call a will larger than our own making the decision?
And George Orwell died of TB because his TB was too far advanced by the time antibiotics were available, so they couldn’t save him. More will larger than our own? No doubt, no doubt.
The “leaving it to a will larger than ours to decide when it should end” is, in cases, like this probably crap.
It really means “leaving it until the dose of drugs required to make the pain marginably bearable exceeds that which will leave the patient alive”.
This is the “doctrine of unintended consequences” that some resort to so that they can (a) deny people the right to request euthenasia BUT (b) allow doctors to ease patient’s pain, even when they know that the dose administered will kill.
PS There’s a good post on Normblog about this.
(By the way, I hope you understood that I meant the quotes in the article, not your response thereto. I agree with you)
What’s all this rubbish about “sparing us the awful choice” and “giving back the loving caring”? Several of my elderly relatives, rather than die in useless agony, checked out via suicide. They weren’t clinically depressed or mentally disturbed. They simply calculated how much time they had left and how much pain and indignity they could (or ought to) withstand and spent the remaining time well. None of us ever thought the less of them, or felt tortured by guilt. We actually rather admired their decisiveness and determination, their desire to spare everyone (including themselves) the squalor of terminal care. Guess that shows how pagan and unChristian my clan is. Bunch of old Romans among the modern barbarians, what.
P.S. Not to mention the fact that here in America, where doctors are thrown in prison for being “too liberal” in prescribing pain medication for patients suffering from severe chronic pain, there is an added incentive for the terminally ill to check out early. If the Bible-thumping God-bothering meddlers really want to reduce suicide among the terminally ill, they might want to reconsider our disastrous War on Drugs and start campaigning for doctors’ right to use effective pain-management regimens.
Re: the Normblog post. I’m not sure that the slippery slope objection is so strong. A terminally ill person who is being pressured into committing suicide is already suffering a terrible misfortune (other than the terminal illness) and I can’t believe that there will suddenly be an explosion of it were euthanasia legalized. From what I know it is usually the family who oppose the suicide, it is always difficult to let go of a loved one. Surely it wouldn’t be too difficult to enforce regulations to prevent these rare cases of callous families trying to bump off their parents.
“My father himself, were united in cherishing life” well if its what he wanted anyway, his father actually DID make a choice, it was just convenient that it didn’t contradict his own position, because heaven help him then.
Finally, I find it particularly bizarre that in so many places ‘allowing to die’ (i.e. starve, or die of thirst etc…) is considered acceptable but a quick painless death is not. Seems like one of the worst forms of moral self-righteousness.
stuart wrote: “I find it particularly bizarre that in so many places ‘allowing to die’ (i.e. starve, or die of thirst etc…) is considered acceptable but a quick painless death is not. Seems like one of the worst forms of moral self-righteousness”
This hits on the head something I found puzzling about the Schiavo case recently. Those wanting to “let her die” together with the judges who permitted this were willing to starve her to death over a period of days, but not give her an overdose of a painkiller that would have ended it all immediately. But in this case the objectionable “moral self-righteousness” is on the “let her die” side.
That’s because only passive euthanasia is allowed. It’s illegal to give someone an overdose with the intent to kill. I’m sure Michael Schiavo would have chosen that opton for his vegetable wife had it been available to him. So, again, the “keep ’em alive no matter what” crowd has forced these starvation/suffocation methods on us.
I think that in the Schiavo case there was pretty solid evidence that she wouldn’t suffer either way, it was more of a dignity thing, but again, an overdose would seem like the sane choice. But many people (the supreme court for example) think that ‘allowing to die’ is a morally superior to killing, when it is actually just killing with more suffering/loss of dignity.
Point taken, Stuart. The Schiavo case was not really about choice, but the insistence of religious believers that their belief should determine another’s fate; in this case compelling a slow death in the name of … whatever it was.
At the risk of seeming obvious;
Thou shalt not kill; but need’st not strive
Officiously to keep alive:
I don’t know how this is relevant, but many years ago when I was living in S.E. Asia, refugees from Cambodia were preyed upon by pirates and local fishermen who would rob and rape, but put their victims over the side with an empty jerry-can; their death was all but certain, but the killers had avoided the sin of murder by claiming it was up to fate or god or whatever.
“Yet he would have been so wrong – because, more than anything else, we wanted to be there with him in his suffering giving back some of the care he’d given us when we were young.”
Rephrased: We wanted him to suffer so that we could feel good about caring for him.
I really don’t know what else there is to say.
If I may add something totally below the belt on Sacks, I had the misfortune to be introduced to him three or four years ago and found him unbearably pompous. Other people I knew who could not avoid a dinner in his honour because they had some responsibility for hospitality not only strengthened this impression with numerous fresh anecdotes, but also told of his extremely proprietorial attitude towards his wife. The impression I got was that it seemed understood that she would defer to him on everything and he would field any questions directed to her (to save her having to guess his line?).
“How easy it would have been for him to spare us those final tormenting days. I can see him doing it.”
WTF….how utterly self-absorbed can this idiot be? It wasn’t about him – it was about his father dying in agony, not going to get better and not being spared even one bit of useless suffering. If this creep ever experiences truly severe pain I think he’ll find he doesn’t give a rat’s ass about prolonging it for any reason whatever!!!