New assisted dying laws risk most ancient of instincts
Fundamental questions about why human beings are important demand answers and we cannot escape inquiring about the nature of human beings, says Stuart Weir
Why are human beings important? This fundamental question demands an answer for every area of life, but none more so than in healthcare. When it comes to administering care to others, there must be a deeper, underlying principle. We cannot escape inquiring about the nature of human beings.
British healthcare borrows the ethosoftheancienthippocraticoath and requires trainees at the beginningoftheircareerstolivebyit;‘iwill not give a drug that is deadly’. Ending the life of other human beings is the ultimate red line. Why? Because humans are significant beings by default. This is a clear sign that the ancients esteemed humans highly. Alarmingly, this most ancient of instincts in medicine is at risk today with the prospect of new ‘assisted dying’ legislation.
Campaigners for assisted suicide ask: ‘what about acute and unbearablepain?surelythatisanexception to the great oath?’ Not as it stands. The oath of Hippocrates is in place preciselyforthesemomentsofdoubt and profound questioning. We are different from animals. For generations, sages and philosophers have concluded that human beings are the apex of animal life. Our brightest andbesthavemaintainedthatsufferingpetscanbeeuthanised,buttofollow suit with humans should be out of human bounds. There is a deeper reverence surrounding human life which separates us from all other creatures.
Neither are humans a random aggregate of atoms that eventually fall apart. We live even if many of us do not find ourselves living happy lives. The nihilistic meaninglessness of Nietzsche only leads us to madness;thereismoretogleanfrom lifethanmere‘existence’.humanlife is something to hallow, something to swallow hard at when we pause to consider one another’s special expression. Postmodern existentialistshavetakenusdownadeadendin thisregard.wedohaveapurposeasa species, which is a clue that humans are highly significant.
We are a social species. We live in places and communities together with shared services that offer us gifts of the common good. Life is not about me; it ought to be about us. When the emphasis shifts from the communaltotheindividualoursocietybreaksdownbecauseselfishness reigns.iftheautonomousself,which always seeks overreaching control, becomes commonplace, life together crumbles. Living as if only my way mattersonlylendsitselftopetulance. Thus when we make laws that compel physicians to cross a medical red line, we are unreasonably enforcing thatpersontoplaceaburdenontheir conscience. We are asking families with power of attorney to question whether they ‘should have pushed for that outcome, even despite their suffering?’
Humans have carved civilisations aroundmutualcare.weholdthefeeble hand. We patiently empathise. We grieve in advance and hope for thebest.wesitinpatientsilencewith our loved ones. This is what we have alwaysdoneandmustcontinuetodo. It is imperative that our compulsion to react to the pain of others by offering them death be met with impermeable restraint. Because to terminate the life of another human being by assisted suicide is to prematurely end something extraordinarily special. Not just something, but someone.
Stuart Weir, National Director of CARE for Scotland