Altruistic intention of mercy killing ignored

Law will not back down in moral issue

Section 11 of the Bill of Rights states that everyone has the right to life, but what can be said of the taking of someone’s life when the motivation is altruistic?

Can saving someone from prolonged pain caused by a debilitating disease, or someone in a vegetative state, not be seen as a worthwhile cause?

Are there no circumstances in which mercy killing could be regarded as permissible or tolerable?

These are moral questions complicated by legal considerations. Taking someone’s life in our legal system amounts to murder, an act described as “morally reprehensible”.

And this rules out even altruistic intentions where one administers a lethal injection to release a cancer sufferer from excruciating suffering and pain, or where a terminal ill person asks another person to assist him or her to end their life. In short, any person who helps another to end their life is liable to be convicted of murder.

Recently, university professor Sean Davison was released from prison after serving eight years for helping three people to die, part of which he served under house arrest. He is adamant that mercy killing is a morally correct position to adopt if this will save a terminally ill person from prolonged pain and suffering.

The law, as it stands, will not back down. Several theories have been propounded by those who are not sympathetic to Davison’s cause. They claim that no one should be allowed to “play God”.

They feel that if the thinking held by people such as Davison is not curbed, floodgates will open and arbitrary decisions as to “who should live and who should die” will be routinely taken on a whim, allowing “life to be held cheap”.

These arguments appear to be persuasive against mercy killing or euthanasia. But let us consider a scenario which relates to conjoined twins. The doctor told the parents that it was possible to save one twin, and not both, if they were to be separated.

The parents, devout Catholics, objected on religious grounds.

But the doctors and hospital would have none of this, and petitioned the courts to grant permission to separate the twins, which was granted. The one twin survived.

What lessons are there to be drawn from the intervention by the hospital to overrule the parents’ wishes?

The decision by the court was premised on the rational inspired argument that society demands of us to save as many people as we possibly can.

This could be transposed to our political life, our economy and many other spheres of life.

Perhaps that explains the very notion that as society we have police in our midst, paid for by taxpayers’ money so that as many lives as possible may be protected from those bent on decimating life. In the final analysis, society has a lot on its plate to think deeply about. There are millions of South Africans who have no access to first-rate facilities. Health budgets are cut because of the sluggish economy. Many lose their lives in hospitals without having the benefit of life-giving medicines in health facilities that are overwhelmed, and crumbling under the weight of corrupt systems.

In the same vein, there will be a tiny section of the population who will be overwhelmed by diseases and may wish to be helped to terminate their lives. The law and legislative processes must step up to tackle these issues.