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The question of the permissibility of “active euthanasia”, the act of killing a human being directly and intentionally with the assistance of a medical professional, remains o­ne of the most difficult questions for moral philosophers, and for present governments to answer. Proponents of active euthanasia prefer to call it “mercy-killings”, arguing that euthanasia protects a citizen’s right to die, and is morally permissible because it would end the extreme pain from which the citizen is suffering. Proponents of active euthanasia also argue that it is merely an aid for those who would otherwise have committed suicide, a practice that is not in itself illegal in Canada . The purpose of this paper, however, is to contest that active euthanasia denies a citizen’s right to live, it denies the person’s right to be protected from harm, it does not guarantee the safety of patients who may have been misdiagnosed, it does not leave room for the unaccountability of human emotion, and it devalues life.

NOTE: This paper is specific to Canadian law, though the arguments being addressed are fairly generic with respect to ACTIVE euthanasia and hold regardless of location. This paper, however, does not address passive euthanasia, which is allowing someone to die, but not physically aiding them in doing so. Such an issue warrants its own piece separate from this o­ne.

In order to argue that active euthanasia devalues life, o­ne must argue why o­ne should value it in general. Humans traditionally attribute great value to life. Some will argue that life is valued merely because o­ne’s care for it usually acts as a motivator, and gives the person reason or justification for her/his actions. From a religious perspective, all three of the world’s major religions, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, all agree that life must be valued since it is a gift from God. From an evolutionary perspective, a person must value life because her/his prime concern should be survival and procreation; suicide opposes both of these, as it disallows further procreation, and a dead person can no longer aid in the preservation of humanity. One could also argue that if life is not of value, then o­ne should not look at pogroms or holocausts in disgust, as they are merely killing valueless lives. It is not unreasonable to state that a very large majority of the world’s citizens strongly condemn both, for if they did not, organizations such as the United Nations would not exist. It is felt that these reasons are sufficient for valuing life, and this sufficiency is presumed for the purposes of this paper.

Absolute legalization, or even permission for specific instances of euthanasia, allows for abuse of the system. That is, if o­ne allows for “acceptable reasons” for euthanasia, it would not be difficult for both patients and doctors to exploit the system, and defining “acceptable” deaths would prove most challenging. Patients may look for any way with which they can fit themselves into the criteria, and doctors may be influenced by the extra salary they could acquire by serving those patients. Naturally, o­ne could contest that this argument exhibits all the characteristics of the “slippery-slope” fallacy, and indeed, it does. o­ne should note, however, that it is precisely because of this reasoning that our laws regarding murder are so stringent – if there are specific cases other than mental diseases for which we make exceptions to our murder laws, it is not unreasonable to expect that those accused of murder will, for care of their own welfare and fear of punishment, actively pursue those “loopholes”.

Furthermore, the fear of the result of legalization is not unjustified; o­ne need o­nly look at a country in which active euthanasia is legal, such as the Netherlands , to see the reason for worry. For a person to die by euthanasia there, courts decided that those suffering from unbearable suffering that could not be treated otherwise and persistently requested it, could choose to die by euthanasia. In 1990, it was found that 2 700 people died by euthanasia, 1 000 of these people died by active euthanasia. Of these, 60% made their wishes known in some form of writing, but not by the standard that their health association required. The remaining 40% had not expressed a desire to have their lives terminated. Of course, it could be argued that some of these patients had expressed a desire to die, but not officially; that does not speak, however, for those who did not desire their death at all. Let us even grant that all of these 400 people had requested death but not officially; the mere fact that in 40% of all cases, neither the patients nor their doctors complied with the laws regulating the practice and had no legal documents to support their cases in any form, indicates the facility with which the system can be abused. (Statistics can be found in Barney Sneiderman and Joseph M. Kaufert, eds. , Euthanasia in the Netherlands: A Model for Canada? , Legal Research Institute of the University of Manitoba, 1994, chapters 1 - 3.)

Canadian law puts a great emphasis o­n the preservation and protection of the lives of others ; it values life. Because of this, Canada does not permit capital punishment, it plays an active role in peace-keeping, and avoids all wars when possible. For this reason it odd that in 1972, Canada decriminalized suicide – an act which suggests the opposite, and will be discussed later. It is precisely for this zero tolerance of crimes committed against others, and our value of life, that Robert Latimer was not acquitted for the “mercy-killing” of his daughter, and is also why suicide is still looked upon with horror (despite its decriminalization). Latimer felt that his daughter was in so much pain because of her genetic disease that she deserved permanent relief from her suffering. Since she could not request it herself, Latimer took it upon himself to decide for her. This type of active euthanasia is condemned even by most proponents of active euthanasia, but it is an important topic to discuss, because it raises an important question: Who can speak for a victim of pain if the victim does not have the ability to speak for her/himself?

In answer to this question, it is clear that proponents of active euthanasia would have a very difficult task in deciding whose life should be taken, and whose should not be taken. It has been mentioned that they do not claim that a person can speak o­n behalf of someone else; however, this [convenient] position to take is somewhat unreasonable. Without a doubt, making laws to cover all cases of active euthanasia would be extremely difficult. By refusing to argue for specific cases of euthanasia, o­ne avoids (either intentionally or unintentionally) addressing the fact that the government must make specific laws to address Canadian citizens’ value of life. Making the laws very generic allows for abuse, and may cause unnecessary loss of life. This is not a slippery slope argument, as it is the government’s duty to protect its citizens and provide a system of order – that is the very reason we have laws.

Proponents of active euthanasia argue that the case of Robert Latimer is an exception, that there are cases where the patient her/himself will request to die. In fact, they argue that it is “criminal” to allow them to continue to suffer. Opponents of active euthanasia do not deny the fact that there will exist situations in which the person is in tremendous pain, be it psychological or physical. It is argued, however, that it is not necessary to take the life of the human being in order to end their suffering. It is better, because humans value life, to end a person’s pain, not the person’s life. The counter-argument is of course, that opponents of active euthanasia cannot guarantee that the patient’s pain can always be relieved. Again, opponents do not deny this.

Concurrently, however, a proponent of active euthanasia can give no greater guarantee that the patient will not undergo a change of heart , and decide the next day, or even within five minutes, that she/he no longer wishes to die. Human emotions are variable under time, pressure, and environment. If o­ne removes a cheerful person from a spacious, moderately heated room, and places him in a tight, overly heated room, it has been shown that he will be in a much less cheerful mood than he was previously. Furthermore, active euthanasia would deny the patient the right of being protected from harm, it would provide no protection for a patient who has been misdiagnosed, and it would violate the oath that doctors take to preserve the lives of their patients. It is also worth noting that cases in which pain cannot be alleviated are very few, in democratic countries such as Canada , laws are passed based o­n the majority, not o­n the minority.

The decriminalization of suicide, however, presents a great difficulty for opponents of active euthanasia, as the system appears quite contradictory with respect to this law. The contradiction becomes evident when supporters of active euthanasia argue that because suicide is not a criminal offence, neither should active euthanasia. They argue that a person seeking active euthanasia would kill himself, but he cannot, so he merely needs help in doing so. This argument seems both sound and valid, but there is a complication in the law. Despite the fact that suicide has been decriminalized, o­ne is not allowed to assist, help, or even counsel someone into committing suicide. In fact, if a police officer sees someone ready to commit suicide, the officer is required to intervene as forcefully as necessary to prevent the person from following through with the act. In fact, if the officer does not intervene, the officer can be charged for “aiding, counselling, or abetting” suicide, which breaches the criminal code of Canada . In other words, it is a criminal offence not to intervene in someone’s choice to end her/his life. Because of this clear contradiction, it is no more valid for a proponent of active euthanasia to argue that because suicide has been decriminalized, so should active euthanasia, than it is for an opponent to argue that because active euthanasia has been criminalized, so should suicide.

Opponents of active euthanasia argue that the government decriminalized suicide for reasons of practicality, not morality. Of course, there is a degree of difficulty associated with prosecuting a corpse. Prosecuting someone who already sees her/his life as a form of “punishment” is equally impractical and is not likely to have any “positive” effects o­n either the person or society as a whole. Because of society’s value of life, it is generally agreed that those whose attempts fail should seek medical and psychological attention. This agreement, again, is not without basis; according to Statistics Canada, o­nly 9% of those who were hospitalized for attempting suicide attempted it a second time. Clearly, because of attention and care, the other 91% of the patients experienced a change of heart . This is at least indicative that o­ne should not so hastily move toward killing the person.

Active euthanasia should not be morally permissible. Not o­nly does it violate the oaths that medical doctors make before entering their profession, but it is also very susceptible to abuse, as demonstrated by the Netherlands case study. Proponents are willing to change the law for the sake of the minority of patients whose pain cannot be alleviated at all, but they neglect to take other serious cases into consideration. They do not consider the minority of patients who are misdiagnosed – lives that are of equal value, and citizens who also deserve the right to live even if their doctors have made mistakes. They do not fully take into consideration Canadian statistics that indicate that the majority of suicidal citizens, citizens desiring death, experience a change of heart after their psychological pain is alleviated through therapy and clinical help. They do not take into consideration the variability of human emotion ; a person is likely to desire or behave uncharacteristically – even request death, depending o­n her/his internal and external environments. Active euthanasia neglects that variability and environmental/situational effects, and focuses o­n killing the person rather than the pain. Eliminating pain allows us to preserve human life, which Canadian law puts a great emphasis o­n, because its citizens value life . Canadian law has an obligation to protect every patient; the allowance of active euthanasia violates this duty.