Physician Assisted Suicide
A paragon of health, you go to the doctor with unusual symptoms, only to be diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Within six months, your health has deteriorated so quickly that you cannot even dress yourself. Is your life worth living anymore? Dr. Michael Buratovich of Spring Arbor University poses this question, asking whether one should be allowed access to physician-assisted suicide (PAS) in order to die peacefully and with dignity. In order to help students fully understand the issue, he explains the history of the concept, beginning with Jack Kevorkian, “Dr. Death” himself, and then recalls the history of suicide in many cultures and the early church’s response to it. After drawing on Scripture for a correct perspective of human life, he then reflects on modern societies that have embraced PAS and the effects it is continuing to have. Dr. Buratovich spends the rest of the time delineating the arguments for and against PAS, as well as a correct definition of “dignity.” He concludes by admonishing Christians to treat life with the same respect used in the Bible, to consider every effect PAS will have on a society that embraces it, and to look for ways to treat the root issues behind PAS.
The Euthanasia Debate (Part 2) (via Equip)
In Part One of this series I examined two central aspects of the euthanasia debate. First, several important background concepts in ethical theory were explained. Second, the main features of the libertarian and traditional views of euthanasia were set forth. The libertarian view, advocated by philosopher James Rachels, states that there is no morally relevant difference between active and passive euthanasia. Moreover, Rachels says, it is biographical life (which includes a person's aspirations, human relationships, and interests), not biological life (being a human being), that is important from a moral point of view (see Part One, p. 13). And if passive euthanasia is morally justifiable in a given case, then so is active euthanasia, since there is no relevant distinction between them. The traditional view affirms that there is a clear, moral difference between...
The Euthanasia Debate (Part 1b) (via Equip)
The libertarian view is a minority position among current moral philosophers and theologians, but it nevertheless has a strong, articulate group of supporters. The clearest, most forceful statement of the view can be found in the writings of philosopher James Rachels. In what follows, therefore, I will focus on his position as a way of analyzing the libertarian view of euthanasia. According to Rachels, the distinctions used in the traditional view are inadequate. There is nothing sacred or morally significant about being a human being with biological life. Nor is there any moral difference between...
The Euthanasia Debate (Part 1a) (via Equip)
There are two different uses of the term "euthanasia." The first is sometimes called the "narrow construal of euthanasia." On this view euthanasia is equivalent to mercy killing. Thus, if a physician injects a patient with a drug with the intent to kill the patient, that would be an act of euthanasia, but if the physician allows the patient to die by withholding some excessively burdensome treatment, that does not count as an example of euthanasia. The second view is sometimes called the "broad construal of euthanasia" and includes within its definition of "euthanasia" both killing (active euthanasia) and allowing to die (passive euthanasia). The broad construal is more widely used, so we will adopt it in this series. The active/passive distinction amounts to this...
The Battle For Life
The debate over euthanasia is not a modern phenomenon. The Greeks carried on a robust debate on the subject. The Pythagoreans opposed euthanasia, while the Stoics favored it in the case of incurable disease. Plato approved of it in cases of terminal illness. But these influences lost out to Christian principles as well as the spread of acceptance of the Hippocratic Oath: "I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody if asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to that effect." In 1935 the Euthanasia Society of England was formed to promote the notion of...
