A spectre is haunting Europe — and, indeed, the civilised world. I’m not talking about communism (this time). Rather, this spectre is of a completely new kind of society. It advances under humanitarian labels: the ‘right to die’, the ‘good death’ (the literal meaning of euthanasia) and indeed sometimes that most hallowed of rights: autonomy and the right to self-creation.

The contentious question of a ‘right to die’ has come to the foreground yet again with the appeal of Tony Nicklinson for a guarantee that his doctors will not be prosecuted for ending his life at his behest. Mr Nicklinson suffered from locked-in syndrome, a pattern of brain damage so pervasive that it leaves the sufferer without any conscious control of his body. His descriptions of the indignities he has to endure due to his condition are heartbreaking, and no-one who witnessed him tear up when his appeal for death was denied could feel untouched by the suffering this man has gone through. There is a horrid cruelty in condemning a man to live in that condition, and Mr Nicklinson himself did not carry on. He refused nutrition, and died a few days afterwards. After seven years of no control over any aspect of his life, he was incapable of asserting control over his death.

How, then, can one justify the argument that life is always valuable? How can one, short of being of an extremely cruel disposition, claim that Mr Nicklinson’s life was in fact worth living, and worth not destroying? That is the question those seeking to usher in this entirely new kind of society are posing. How can one not be moved by Mr Nicklinson’s tears at what David Allen Green (aka Jack of Kent) called a ‘dreadful’ verdict? It seems to be almost shameful to question a man’s right to die.

The best battles, Sun Tzu writes, are won before they are even fought. The proponents of a new kind of society have already won in that sense. They have won by winning — and dominating — the rhetoric around the issue, and all debate is in vain until that is untangled. The dice are loaded — the debate is impossible to win because it has, in a sense, already been framed to be unwinnable for the ‘pro-life’ side (much as I hate that expression). Yet their rhetoric is philosophically unsound, and that is a glimmer of hope for regaining the upper hand.

Consider, for instance, the very question whether life is ‘worth living’ — or keeping alive — when it offers nothing but pain, in ‘perpetual despair’ (something readers of Jonathan Jones are presumably no stranger to). Consider how deftly it short-circuits the question of life’s main object, and imposes a terribly reductive hedonistic view of human life’s worth. The principles of pleasure and pain are undeniable, but there is a deeper question here. When and why is life worth living? What *is* human life about? Is human life a profound process of experiencing the world in its entirety, the good and the bad, living to the full of our abilities (however much or little that may be) — or is it about chasing pleasure, and discarding life once that becomes arduous or impossible? The implications of the view that a life filled with pain alone (which even most reports of Mr Nicklinson’s life contradict: there is no denying that he can, and does, experience pleasurable moments) is worthless are hardly discussed. Presumably, then, if the object of human life is the pursuit of happiness, someone being artificially kept alive and his brain’s dopaminergic (pleasure/reward) pathways constantly stimulated has a worthwhile existence? Most of us would deny that. We want more: we want the real deal. However pleasurable, there is something profound with a life that is not ‘real’, that is so detached from the actual experience of ‘life’ as this crazy, wonderful kaleidoscope of all colours of human experience from the most distressing to the utterly joyful. For life to be all about the twin motivations of pleasure and pain and the wish to avoid one and pursue the other mindlessly reduces man to a near-animal state. Worse, it fails to account for some of the best things about being human: reason and moral action. Some things are pleasurable and yet we don’t do it — most of us would really love to have Poussin’s *Dance to the Music of Time* hanging in their living room, but even if one would be assured there would be no risk of punishment, few of us would actually go out and steal it. We are higher beings than what is implied by necessity in this argument. But by the rhetoric of pleasure, pain and suffering and the complete absence of a serious discussion about the inherent value of life, the debate has been rigged and decided before it has even started.

Or consider how the side usually so proud of seeing the issue without emotions and deriding their pro-life opposition as ‘emotional’ has centered the debate around the misfortunes of Mr Nicklinson. But, as Their Honours recognised in the Nicklinson verdict, there is a systemic impact, and that impact is immeasurable. Quite beyond the fact that Mr Nicklinson wanted the High Court to carve out what would have effectively amounted to a fully fledged defence of euthanasia to the charge of murder, Britain would have woken up to a new kind of society the next morning. To allow the Nicklinson verdict is to usher in a new kind of world, one dominated by the culture of ‘disposable humanity’. The cornerstone of civilisation is that life is inviolable, that life is the highest good, and allows no compromises. The moment societies begin to carve out exceptions, they begin to slide down a slippery slope that ends in the gas chambers of Buchenwald or the cold, snowy ranges of Norilsk and Vorkhuta.

Human goods — and judgments of the High Court — are universal and indivisible. That’s their very point. They are not amenable to individual exceptions. And so, the focus on Mr Nicklinson’s plight is entirely misleading, because the decision was not about him. The decision was about *all* human life, and Mr Nicklinson is a drop in that ocean. The decision was about a watershed in our view of human existence. It was as much about the elderly lady with dementia, the seriously ill newborn and the unborn child who was just diagnosed in utero with a predisposition to mental illness.

And it was, I guess, about myself to a point. I am, by training, a lawyer and by education a legal theorist and historian. I have been taught, and have taught my students, to develop a degree of detachment. But human experiences are not n = 1 trials or distractions from the actual debate. They can inform and enlighten us, too, of the realities of a situation we sit in judgment over. Our commitment to good and honest philosophical discourse instead of appealing to emotions is a cornerstone of academic integrity. It is the very thing that makes discussing these things possible for people with opposing viewpoints. But it risks us seeing the entire issue as a detached, academic pursuit, as a neat question to be discussed in some Oxford Senior Common Room in tweed and bow ties.

It is not. It is about human lives. Real, flesh and blood human lives. And perhaps my experience with serious illness has made me more sensitive to that — and if that was the case, for that alone, it was a blessing in disguise. For I have been ‘there‘. A few months ago, curled up around the toilet bowl, chest sore from dry heaving for days on end and every single fibre in my muscle aching from low potassium levels, those words have left my lips. “I wish someone would put me out of my misery,” I moaned. As my intestines failed, so did my strength to bear the pain and indignity of nausea, constant vomiting, pain and the side effects of heavy medication to control my symptoms (and cause new ones). It is difficult for me to live with those words in retrospect, but they made sense at that very point. I understand, perhaps not the depth, but the kind of emotion that can lead us to wish for death.

And I’m not going to say it’s wrong — merely that it cannot be paid heed lest it corrupt everyone. Let me reverse here Plato’s argument in the Crito.

The Crito is the penultimate of the Socratic dialogues, and takes place after Socrates had been sentenced to death, but is granted a temporary reprieve. His friend Crito visits, who tries to convince Socrates to escape, telling him of powerful friends of his willing to secure his escape from injustice — from death as a punishment for sins he has not, and knows he has not, committed. Yet Socrates declines. What, he tells Crito, would he say if the spirits of the Laws would came to visit him and call him to account? He has subscribed to those laws, and the laws have protected and fostered him. He may have been the subject of an unjust trial, but he has no more right to strike a blow against the law than he has to do so against his father. And so, Crito leaves — and Socrates goes on to die.

Like Socrates, Mr Nicklinson is the victim of injustice. It is in no way just or righteous that one has to live in the indignity of his situation. What that does not necessarily mean, however, is that we have a right to strike against a human good. For there can be no exceptions of a human good without implying that the good is not universal but particular. Had the law been changed for Mr Nicklinson’s sake, it would have deprived thousands, yea millions, of protection. The old lady with dementia, who is convinced by her uncaring offspring that she is a burden (a feeling reinforced by the rhetoric of strict societal utilitarians, such as Baroness Warnock), the baby born with serious health conditions who will not even have a fighting chance because his life will be deemed incapable of consisting of anything but pain (a description frequently given of persons with no higher brain activity or severe brain damage, but one that so far lacks serious proof in neuroscience) or the severely brain damaged accident victim, whose family will decide he would not have wanted to live in this state — Their Honours were sitting in judgment over their lives, too. Nicklinson was about opening the floodgates to a new kind of world, one in which we have given up reverence for life. There is no backtracking from the society we would have become. Once we start justifying deaths, all bets are off — and it is not long until we start killing those we deem not to have a sufficient quality of life for some other greater good, such as their organs.

Like Socrates had no right to demand society’s principles to be set aside for him, even in face of injustice, I felt I had no right to keep demanding so in my time of anguish and sickness: and I wish Mr Nicklinson had, too. There is more to law than individually right decisions. Law operates well when it is a seamless and internally coherent whole. The idea of ‘law as integrity’, as legal theorist Joseph Raz called it, demanded a coherent answer, and did not allow for a ‘good death’ for Mr Nicklinson. The price we pay for protecting some of the most vulnerable in society is that others may have to go without day. When what is at stake has such a profound systemic effect on who we are as a society and what law achieves within it, decisions will not always be perfect. When an individual tragedy spurs us to examine one of the very fundamental precepts of our civilisation, the unlimited and unbounded appreciation for human life, the issue is bigger than the individual. Mr Nicklinson was caught up in this storm, and he is a sacrificial victim of justice for all that sometimes comes at the price of injustice for a few.

This society is at a watershed. It is constantly taught by advertising and mass media to chase pleasure — and it is on the verge of losing the understanding of the profundity of human life that goes beyond mere empty pleasure. We are being fed a diet of ‘if it feels good, it *is* good’, a cult of one’s own personality. The individual is infinitely valuable, but the individual is not the same as his current, fleeting pleasure. Just like we as individuals are called to do the right thing, and not necessarily the pleasurable one, courts will face issues like Mr Nicklinson’s, having to do right in face of, and against, the ‘good’. At the dawn of the Atomic Age, Bernard Baruch warned of us becoming ‘nuclear giants but moral dwarfs’. The same risk now looms over us with our unprecedented abilities to sustain life, to diagnose conditions in utero and other bones of contention in the biomedical arena. Unless and until we develop a respect for life that profoundly takes account of what life itself is, and goes beyond simplistic notions of equating it with empty pleasure, we remain moral toddlers in a very, very grown-up world.

Chris. 

Pericles August 30, 2012 at 21:42

Commendable argument, Chris.

Two points occur to me ;  I shall try to be brief.

First, throughout this discussion – save in the comments of lifeisthejourney and m.barnes – the premise seems to have been
that the decision, whether by the decedent or by others, to take a life should
be predicated upon the level of pain suffered.  To my mind, especially
given the efficiency with which to-day’s medicine seems to be able to deal
with pain, a far more important consideration – which I assume to have
motivated Mr. Nicklinson and to motivate those in his condition – is the
feeling of being a prisoner, regardless of the extent of one’s pain.

Secondly, the assumption has been made that acknowledgment of and
concession to the wishes of some-one in Mr. Nicklinson’s predicament would
inevitably lead to the termination of the lives of others against their
will.  Where, as in this case, the patient is capable of taking the
decision and his intentions can be clearly interpreted — there was never any
suggestion of his being of unsound mind — he ought, in my respectful
submission, to have the right to take his own life and, given his physical
inability to accomplish that, to be allowed to ask a compassionate society to
assist him in that task.

The court was right to leave the matter to the legislature ;  the
campaign really ought to have been in that forum to begin with.

ΠΞ

(‘Their Lordships’, by the way.)

Elena ‘andcart
August 28, 2012 at 13:05

A bloody good Blog Post. Thank you.

But of course, someone could have assisted him had they wished. They just
wanted the legal right to do so without consequence. Very selfish if you ask
me.

Michael August 27, 2012 at 22:19

A frightening thought, but what if death does not solve the problem? Then
you’re really stuffed.

m.barnes August 27, 2012 at 14:39

I will confess up front to a massive, knee jerk scpeticism to the ‘slippery
slope’ argument which Chris invokes several times here. As soon as I see it my
mind goes critical. And while erudite, there is a lot to be critical of. Let
me get my bug bear out of the way up front and then I can relax: the post
warns against emotive language and yet uses it: ‘spectre haunting Europe’
Really? The slippery slope that leads to gas ovens? Dangerously close to that
pesky Nazi law governing internet comments. And that slippery slope would
appear to have sloped off in those places were some form of euthanasia is
enacted, ever so carefully, in Law.
I think the presumption that this is
about human beings in modern times viewing ‘life’ as simple the pursuit of
pleasure and the avoidance of pain on which the authors emotive arguments are
based is flawed. I am not sure that Mr Nicholson’s issue was avoidance of pain
and we cannot ask him now. I certainly do not think anyones life can be so
reductively described. Life is a complex mixture of all sorts of stimuli for
all sorts of people: procreation, reflecting glory upon a believed in creator,
pursuit of pleasure (which for some people is sexual pain), pursuit of money,
pursuit of status, desire to fully exploit potential, pursuit of
responsibility – I could go on.
The argument put forward that people may,
in extremis, plead for death which is not meant cannot be, I think, applied to
Mr Nicholson nor others who take complicated journeys to Dignitas. Those
people aren’t in a temporary condition, and havn’t said it once or even a few
times. Their conditions aren’t medically treatable/ are terminal/ involve a
great deal of pain before inevitable death/ unbearable state of living – they
are not a theoretical game about a condition that will last 24hours caused by
a jellyfish.
Chris asserts that ‘The cornerstone of civilisation is that
life is inviolable, that life is the highest good, and allows no compromises’
– I am sorry but that really IS an assertion. There are many claims for the
cornerstone – perhaps another post? I do not think this is the cornerstone of
civilisation – it think it is the cornerstone of Law.
The problem is Chris
is attempting to define and deal with an essentially individual and moral
issue within the framework of the Law. And I do not think the Law is up too
that task, nor that it is designed to be. I DO agree with Chris that the
Judges were correct. This really is one for Parliament, not for them. I also
agree that the Law is all about the whole not the individual. I subscribe to
that old argument that the Law is not about Justice it is about the ordering
of society. And yes, there is an issue around the balancing of the individual
against the good of the whole. In that, the Law, as do the Police, requires
the consent of society to work. The Law is not some glorious, overarching
immutable truth – that is close to religious framing. The Law is what society
decides it should be. Not so long ago it was illegal to be homosexual and for
women to vote. Medical ethics have continually been challenged by medical and
technological advances. And I am afraid this question of whether it is fair
and reasonable to maintain life – in whatever circumstances, whatever the
wishes of the patient – because it is technologically possible is going to
come up more and more frequently and will have to be dealt with by society not
by ‘The Law’.
Chris argues that ‘When an individual tragedy spurs us to
examine one of the very fundamental precepts of our civilisation, the
unlimited and unbounded appreciation for human life, the issue is bigger than
the individual.’ But that is to view life from a Legal framework – we all view
life in the infinitely more complex and at the same time narrow frame or what
OUR appreciation of OUR life is – and that is limited and bounded. Apart from
anything else it is limited and bounded by Death.
The Law is a severely
limited instrument – it’s the best one we’ve got and we need to be careful
about how we tackle this. But to simply dismiss this issue with what is
essentially the argument that ‘ya gotta break a few eggs to get an omlette’ or
the nicer version all prettied up with philisophical grander ‘the needs of the
many outweigh the needs of the few or the one’ will not be tolerated for much
longer. I am not going to quote my own anecdote here – anecdote is not
statistically relevant (although it is interesting how ubiquitous the
experience appears to be). But if I were asked, I would help. I am not
prepared to do a Socrates.

And yes, I think Socrates was a pompous fool in his Crito argument – he was
treating the Law as a religion, not as a flawed creation of society.

m.barnes August 27, 2012 at 14:46

Apologies for my atrocious spelling in places (laptop!). I forgot to add
that I thought Chris argued his case very well – and it has certainly made
me think carefully about the problem and I would like to thank him for
making it.

binao August 27, 2012 at 12:07

The chasm looms every time this issue is raised.
We cannot meet the
desires of an unfortunate few without serious risk of forever turning death
into nothing more than (possibly involuntary) efficient housekeeping for
millions of others to come. Culture and attitudes can and do change over quite
short times; we do not need to accustom society to the casual disposal of
dying or very ill people.
It’s happened before.
I’m sorry not to be able
to advance fancy arguments and references.
I’ve seen death, and I looked
after my dear wife until her last breath, through course after course of chemo
until no more could be done.
Could I have have helped kill her when things
got very bad?
Never.

GildasTheMonk
August 27, 2012 at 09:54

A Tour de Force! I am still digesting it all though.

john malpas August 27, 2012 at 00:49

when you are over saeventy and wake each day knowing there will be pain –
every day – all day. . That what can or will be done for you has beeen done
and that is that.
Then come up with your fancy words.

Chris
August 27, 2012 at 14:36

How’s being 26 and looking at a life of pain, ‘every day — all day’? I
hate to make these things about whining about my own experience with pain,
but ‘wait till you see what pain is like’ is a rather presumptuous argument
to advance, especially in face of me actually commenting on experience
w/pain.

lifeisthejourney August 28, 2012 at 12:17

How about at 18, 3 months before an Olympic tryout, being partially
paralyzed. Living in excruciating pain all day (for life), being told you
will only live till your 30, living with extreme constipation one day,
diarrhea the other (always fun at social situations). Having to use a
catheter to take a piss, getting bladder/kidney infections from constant
use of a catheter. How bad is the pain? difficult to describe but imagine
having your balls squeezed in a vice and hit with a baseball bat every
hour.

Imagine the anxiety being an 18yr old wanting to go on a date? How do
you tell a girl not to worry if you shit the bed during the night; just
one of those things. Imagine the indignity describing intimate details of
your disability to a prospective employer. Or the anxiety being in an
office where you might shit yourself at any time without warning. Or the
frustration at the lack of empathy when the pain is just too bad for that
day, and someone _always_ commenting on how well they managed with
toothache/sprained ankle, or how they hobbled into work with back pain. Or
being so ill and having to cancel a romantic weekend to celebrate your
anniversary, and even though your wife is totally supportive, you can
still read the disappointment in her eyes.

Even with all that I love life and have outlived the doctors
predictions.

Chris, you have my sympathies about living the rest of your life with
pain. That you can cope and maintain a high quality of life will be an
inspiration to many. But just because you can deal with your situation,
does not mean everyone else with pain/life issues is the same as you.

If someone makes a _rational_ decision to end life on their own terms
that is their choice. It is not up to me, you, the state, or anyone else,
to judge that decision.

Ed P August 27, 2012 at 00:30

“The same risk now looms over us with our unprecedented abilities to
sustain life, to diagnose conditions in utero and other bones of contention in
the biomedical arena.”
I’d appreciate some suggestions of studies or
sources about this.

Chris August 27,
2012 at 01:10

Of what exactly?

Ed P August 27, 2012 at 13:49

The diagnostic advances which could inform in-utero genetic decisions.
Perhaps some more on how decisions about foetal viabilibty are made and by
whom (especially when parental consent is impossible).

Also, the Liverpool Pathway – starving & dehydrating the vulnerable
to death – will continue to be used until your desired moral framework
exists. This degrades us all.

Chris August
27, 2012 at 16:48

It’s difficult to cite evidence when I’m not sure what exactly you
want evidenced. As for foetal viability, it is virtually always the
consent of the parents – what are you referring to when you mean when
parental consent is impossible? In such cases, it would be that of the
child’s legal guardian. Again, I’d love to help but I’m afraid I don’t
get what you’re looking for.

alan August 26, 2012 at 20:52

I can still vividly remember the last 2 weeks of my grandmothers life. She
was suffering multiple organ failure and was in excruciating pain for her last
2 weeks of life. She was given the maximum dose of morphine allowed (any
higher and the morphine would have killed her). Even at such a high dose of
pain killers she was in constant pain. When we visited she would be
unconscious from the pain, or awake and screaming out in pain. For the last
week she begged & pleaded to be put out of her misery. She knew she was
dying, as did the doctors. There were no if’s or but’s. No hopes of a miracle
cure, or some leading edge “experimental” drug.

She did not have the choice to end her own life as she was incapable doing
so in her condition. Not giving her the means to commit suicide was very
cruel.

I understand the arguments against assisted suicide and this post makes
some good points. However, preventing assisted suicide can have undesirable
outcomes, allowing assisted suicide can have undesirable outcomes. The
justification of the current system is to prevent abuse & save those who
do have options beyond suicide. But in doing so causes harm to those where
suicide is justified.

As a libertarian I disagree that the state should have control over how I
choose to live (and die). But I recognise there is still the problem of
differentiating between murder and assisted suicide.

Also I am uneasy how the subject of “assisted suicide” is framed. An
informed individual has the means to commit suicide peacefully assuming they
are not incapacitated by ill health. For anyone not in that position, but has
a rational justification to commit suicide, that choice is denied. The only
route open, by the way the debate is framed, is “assisted suicide”. Is giving
someone the means to commit suicide really “assisted suicide”? The very term
“assisted suicide” implies an active role in someones suicide; administering a
overdose for example. But giving someone the means to commit suicide is not
assisting in their suicide as the individual still has to perform the final
act themselves.

I would argue that the only genuine form of “assisted suicide” is neither
assisted, or suicide. It is the killing of another human on compassionate
grounds, where the individual does not have the ability to commit suicide.
Death has become such a taboo subject in our society that the only acceptable
form of compassionate killing is a slow death by suffocation, dehydration, or
starvation.

Chris August 26,
2012 at 23:21

Alan, sorry about your grandmother. My condolences.

As for the state’s role, as long as murder is illegal, and the state is
in charge of prosecuting it, I’m not sure how we could design a system in
which the state doesn’t dictate at least the terminal aspects of your life
and death!

I find pain is a particularly interesting sub-area here. There’s a little
thought experiment I have put to my students on occasion. There’s a species
of Australian box jellyfish known as irukandji. Its sting is known for
causing the worst pain known to man. Even topped up on morphs, fentanyl and
pethidine, victims are in intense and difficult to control pain. However,
it’s non-fatal in the overwhelming majority of cases, and passes after about
24 hours once the toxin is metabolised. One of the curious symptoms
associated with irukandji strings is a feeling of doom, which may or may not
be the result of a bodily response to intense pain rather than an effect of
the toxin. Now imagine you suffer from irukandji toxicity syndrome, and the
doctor leaves a syringe with 3,000mg morphs. That’s enough to kill you,
whether you’re drug-naive or not. Now the question isn’t whether you’d whack
yourself. Most observed irukandji patients, including the crazy-ass Dr.
Barnes who demonstrated the nematocystic origin of irukandji toxicity
syndrome by stinging himself, his 14-year-old son and a friend (!), pretty
much spend their time begging for death. Virtually all of them would jam the
syringe of morphs into their butt given the chance. Now… is *that* a state
in which a person would give informed consent? Is consent given in that
state really free of mental duress? Pain, especially severe pain, induces a
state I very much would, after some personal experience, consider a species
of insanity (legally).

alan August 27, 2012 at 06:30

I do not think pain can be reduced to thought experiments unless one
understands the true nature of pain. Have your students experienced
unbearable pain for 24 hours? Have they been trained in meditation or
other mental techniques used to move the focus of the pain?

What if the sting had no other symptoms except for making the victim
suicidal for 24 hrs. Or suicidal emotions caused by a 24hr viral
infection? Where there is a clear cause and effect appropriate medical
intervention is legitimate and ethical.

What if the sting was not reversible? And the victim lived in constant
searing pain for the rest of their lives; where no amount of pain killers,
or meditation, could provide relief. Mentally there is a marked difference
between acute & chronic pain. Is it possible to truly empathise with
someone who has chronic pain, without ever experiencing the same chronic
pain yourself?

The thought experiment only demonstrates that humans, when put into
sudden and extreme situations, can make very irrational decisions. But
does little to explore the morality of suicide (the topic of discussion),
or explore the nature and forms of pain.

Are you projecting your personal experiences of pain onto everyone
else? Are you sure you know what is best for everyone else? It is possible
for an individual in severe chronic pain to make rational life changing
decisions. How could anyone prove to a judge (or jury) they are making a
rational life decision. What if the decision to commit suicide is
rational, but the courts rule them insane due to pain. What then? do they
live out the rest of their life in a physical/chemical prison? Would
taking up an extreme sport be judged as someone embracing life? Or a form
of attempted suicide?

Judging someone legally insane because of an emotion (pain) which
no-one can ever really empathise with, or quantify, is tyrannical.

Where would your legislation stop? In the early phases of love,
normally rational people can go slightly insane for a time. Would you also
make love a form of legal insanity? What other emotions would you outlaw
to protect us from ourselves?

JuliaM August
27, 2012 at 11:40

“…who demonstrated the nematocystic origin of irukandji toxicity
syndrome by stinging himself, his 14-year-old son and a friend
(!)..”

Ex-friend, I assume?

Chris August
27, 2012 at 14:34

I don’t know, Barnes was known for being out of his mind in general

GildasTheMonk
August 27, 2012 at 11:46

I am sorry to hear of your late Grandmother’s last few weeks Alan. I
think you make a powerful point. it seems to me that sometimes the benefits
of modern medecine in keeping us alive should be balanced by – sometimes –
not doing so. The problem is the Pandora’s Box of letting the State have
that power over us. But I would certainly like the right to pass on
peacefully and without suffering as your late Grandmother did.

Ted Treen August 26, 2012 at 19:33

I agree totally with this post.

Also, what much of the MSM failed to comment was that the court actually
said (in essence) “We don’t have the power to grant any immunity as the law
stands currently – and it is up to Parliament, not us, to effect a change in
legislation.”

Having seen the problems caused (Human Rights Act, inter alia) when Judges
decide to change/re-interpret the law, this cannot be a bad thing, if they
remember their role and their (legal) limitations.

JuliaM August
27, 2012 at 11:39

+1

Harbinger August 26, 2012 at 18:29

People will say your life is your life to do what you will. Others will say
your life belongs to that which gave you life – God. It’s a debate that is
endless primarily because God can neither be proven or disproven to
exist.
My issue with this situation is NEVER, EVER give government the
rights to allow euthanasia, that is don’t allow the state the freedom to kill,
for in doing so you open Pandora’s box.
The important point here is How did
Tony Nicklinson get into such a terrible physical state? Anyone who has dived
down the rabbit hole knows that many diseases (if not all) are the direct
result of man’s tampering with nature, along with city pollution, pollution of
the food and water supply, warfare, vaccinations etc etc. Therefore were we to
put a halt to man’s strivance to be his creator then people like Tony
Nicklinson, would not have had to suffer, the case would never had got into a
courtroom and the decision of euthanasia would never be in question.

Chris August 26,
2012 at 19:03

He had a devastating stroke. There are many reasons for strokes – bad
lifestyle habits, including high blood pressure, being one but by far not
the only. The way the vascular system develops is a complex and fascinating
process, and a lot of the time, there are anomalies – some are harmless,
others are timebombs that can lead to strokes or aneurysms. There is no
point in insinuating that this was somehow Mr Nicklinson’s fault, or that of
modern humanity. In fact, there’s a description of the Assyrian king
Humban-Nimena III dying of stroke — in 689 BC. There is a lot you can do to
prevent strokes (healthier lifestyles, lowering blood pressure,
medications,…), but unfortunately, ‘shit happens’ in the world.

Single Acts of
Tyranny August 27, 2012 at 05:44

“Therefore were we to put a halt to man’s strivance to be his
creator”

Wow, did I just wake up in the sixteenth century? Would you halt the
striving of those of us who don’t believe in a creator but still want to
strive to cure cancer? Would you have halted those who strove to cure a
range of formerly fatal diseases? Mumbling incantations didn’t stop the
black death and be honest, if you are seriously injured (say a broken leg
that can be easily fixed but would kill or incapacitate without it being
repaired) would you go to hospital or church first?

“My issue with this situation is NEVER, EVER give government the rights
to allow euthanasia”

I am not giving the government any rights I simply want them to stop
infringing mine.

“Others will say your life belongs to that which gave you life – God.
It’s a debate that is endless”

No, it’s a debate that’s unnecessary. You live your way, I’ll live mine.
I hope you are never affected by these issues, but if you think God wants
you to suffer at the end of your life, then do (or take the painkillers
someone has strived to invent if they are efficiaceous) your call.
Personally, I want the right to privately contract with someone to feed me
some cyanide if necessary. I am entirely confident I can put in place
sufficient safeguards to protect myself without the state or without, to be
blunt ~ you.

JuliaM August
27, 2012 at 11:39

“My issue with this situation is NEVER, EVER give government the
rights to allow euthanasia, that is don’t allow the state the freedom to
kill, for in doing so you open Pandora’s box.”

Too late. They already have it. They’ll just make a few lawyers* rich
while they argue about it first…

*apologies to the author!

Anna
Raccoon August 26, 2012 at 17:00

I salute the Chris for this post, it is a masterful piece and I am in awe
of its evincive prose.

I have untold sympathy for anyone in Tony Nicklinson’s physical state, and
many others in lesser physical states, partly because I have the first hand
knowledge of having met many who exist in that limbo land – but there is so
much emotional blubber floating around the Blogopshere, that I have been too
enraged to write on the subject.
Tony Nicklinson was NEVER denied the right
to take his own life. A thousand times No! – What a perverse ‘right’ that we
speak of.

He WAS denied the right to demand that someone else take his life without
penalty, and only those reared in an age that views the world myopically in
terms of their own ‘rights’ would fail to see the dangers inherent in that.

If only I had a coin for every time I have seen written this week ‘I know I
couldn’t cope in that state’ – daft buggers, of course they would cope – if
they really couldn’t, they would refuse food and water – precisely the same
inhumane method of death which is allowable to be prescribed by law! There are
remarkably few people in the United Kingdom who are genuinely unable to take
their own life – by my imprecise method of counting those I have met, probably
less than half a dozen. There are a great number of people who have no
personal knowledge of ‘wishing they were dead’ who would change the law for
those half dozen people – and endanger many thousands of other vulnerable
people.

The ‘loss of control’ over your life, a loss of control that anyone who has
endured chemotherapy, the art of taking your body to the point of death and
hopefully no further, will understand, is possibly more difficult to endure
than the pain, and like Chris, I have begged to be allowed to die; I have
fought with a Doctor in an effort to desist her from further attempts to keep
me alive – she ignored me, and I’M BLOODY GLAD SHE DID! I was able to enjoy
the effects of not getting my own way. Those granted the right to demand
instant death when they think they can’t cope any longer will never get that
chance. We abandoned capital punishment on the grounds that we might be
mistaken in less than one percent – yet we wish to grant instant death to
those in the throes of disgusting pain and despair – how would we ever know if
we were mistaken in taking them seriously?

Pain can be controlled – the psychological effects of loss of control are
impossible to medicate. As Chris has so eloquently said – we now have an
entire generation that has been brought up to believe that they can have total
control over their life, their body – and their death. Illogically, it is they
who refuse to believe that they could have sufficient control over their food
intake to end their life if they really were one of the desperately
unfortunate ‘half dozen’.

abrupt August 26, 2012 at 20:30

This is not a comment on Chris’s blog. I never got beyond the 5th para as
I was beginning to suffer from a “death where is thy sting” experience. (I
nearly choked on my own vomit) I would only say that the purpose of life,
pre-birth, is reproduction. Post birth/maturity it should be a matter for
individual choice. I do not include the usual caveats, as even they are open
to choice.

“Those granted the right to demand instant death when they think they
can’t cope any longer will never get that chance.”
I’ll bet on the
favourite, by all means feel free to choose the outsider.

“how would we ever know if we were mistaken in taking them
seriously?”
Unless you’re one of Doris’s confidantes, you wouldn’t. The
“mistake” would have been mine not yours and the consequences mine, not an
addition to your knowledge base.

“they could have sufficient control over their food intake”
Exactly
what is being requested, without the enforced wait in additional pain, to
salve somebody else’s conscience. After all it’s merely an out sourcing
contract for a perfectly legal act.

Rhetoric and eloquence will not change the facts, it’s my ball and I’m
taking it home. Who cares whose driving?

Single Acts of
Tyranny August 26, 2012 at 21:13

“Tony Nicklinson was NEVER denied the right to take his own life. A
thousand times No!”

Well now that is slightly misleading. What you are saying is that he
would not presumably have been force-fed had he declined food and water. So
he could have died of hunger (horrible and prolonged) or thirst (insanity
inducing and very, very hard to actually do to yourself if water is
available). What he was denied was the right to a pain-free and dignified
choice by a great many people with religous views he clearly did not share.

The alternate position is to give more weight to a random lethal virus
than a man’s last choice. If someone close to me were ever in that position
I would help them and if opponents of the last right wanted to jail me for
years, then so be it. Indeed many, many years ago when the old man was dying
of cancer I did discuss the option with him in the last week or so, but our
sensible GP prescribed some powerful morphine saying never take more than
one in 12 hours as two would be painless but probably fatal. He prescribed a
bottle full (he too died years ago so no confidences are breached). In the
end the cancer did for the old man but I think the knowledge that if it all
became too much he could just drift off to sleep comforted him greatly in
his last few days.

Dioclese August 26, 2012 at 21:25

More than misleading, I think. Nicklinson himself said that he was
being discriminated against because he was being denied the right to
suicide due to his disability.

I published on this a couple of days ago at http://dioclese.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/tony-nicklinson.html

It will be interesting one day to see what happens of someone openly
assists a suicide in these sort of circumstances. Will they prosecute?
Probably. Will they be found guilty? Probably. Sentence? Well, who knows.
I just hope I’m on the jury that day because nobody will persuade me not
to vote ‘not guilty’. The law is an ass…

JuliaM August 27, 2012 at 11:36

But he wasn’t ‘refused the right to suicide’ – by all accounts, he
did just that, refusing food and contracting pneumonia with a DNR order
on him.