The History of Euthanasia: The Good Death
Euthanasia, Assisted Suicide, and The Good Death
Euthanasia has always been a thing that’s curious enough to inspire both awe and repulsion, fear and pride, a sense of disbelief at what part of us may feel is cowardly about a person, combined with a feeling of relief and respect that a person has decided to end their own lives and transcend into the next plane of existence, leaving whatever pain they may have in this life behind them.
But of course, we all know that this intentional act of leaving the world comes with its drawbacks — death is very real and very permanent. Thus, a firm decision needs to be made, though it’s not a decision many can make lightly — suicide in and of itself, which is a type of euthanasia, is no easy task for a human being, born with the inner drive to thrive and live, to accomplish.
The nineteenth-century philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer once remarked, “It is quite obvious that there is nothing in this world to which every man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person.” In a very real way, Schopenhauer was right. The central question behind the arguments and debates surrounding euthanasia are centered around who has the right to someone’s life — to choose whether to end it or not — does the individual, or does society? Different societies have had very radically different answers to this question, a question we still hotly debate in today’s world.
Euthanasia is definitely a touchy subject, and one that most of us are conflicted about, at best, but perhaps some historical observations might shed light on what’s been done and what’s both best and possible for the future.
What is Euthanasia?
We should first start off by defining what euthanasia is and what euthanasia isn’t, to get a clearer picture of what constitutes an act that’s called “the good death.” So what is this process we call euthanasia? Well, in modern times it means the painless assisted killing of a patient, usually by a trained and well-educated doctor, who can oversee the process of a person dying in accordance to their wishes. Euthanasia is voluntary, while murder is not.
Much like religious self-immolation, the history of which I’ve detailed here, even including indirect methods, such as the Christians of ancient Rome who aspired to be like Jesus and would commit crimes that were capital offenses so they could be executed, both are considered voluntary actions and don’t quite constitute murder. Some people also use the terms mercy killing and assisted suicide interchangeably, though this list will take all into consideration.
However, assisted suicide and euthanasia are not the same things, and there’s a subtle — but to some people massive — difference between the two. Assisted suicide is providing the means and medical oversight while someone who voluntarily wants to die can end their own lives in a controlled, safe setting, while euthanasia is actually pulling the metaphorical trigger. Considering these definitions, in a very real way, suicide-by-cop is an act of euthanasia, if it can be proven, as were the intentional, voluntary executions of old.
Ancient Euthanasia
In the ancient Mesopotamian cultures of the Fertile Crescent, as well as ancient Jewish culture, what we think of as euthanasia — the merciful killing of a sick or suffering person to end their pain — was outright banned, but that doesn’t mean that similar acts didn’t take place. The ancient Assyrians were a brutal culture, with leaders slicing off pieces of flesh from the condemned to show foreign leaders, and staking and flaying, even impaling criminals and enemy combatants to hang on stakes outside of their city walls, the Assyrians practiced something somewhat like euthanasia, though entirely different.
If you got sick in ancient Assyria, a merciful death was not an option — there was no quick and painless way out like is being proposed and is even legal in some places today. They would simply tie you up and throw you in the river to let you drown.
The ancient Jewish peoples of the Holy Bible also forbade euthanasia on the grounds that the bible forbids killing, especially killing a fellow member of the same community, and thus they didn’t commit euthanasia, assisted suicide, or anything resembling it in any form. This belief worked its way up through the rise of Christianity and still has a strong backing today.
Ancient Greece
One of the most important historical figures to western culture ever to live died by assisted suicide, killing themselves by their own hand, though their hand was helped by those who provided the hemlock. The trial of Socrates ended in what is possibly the most popular philosopher of all time choosing to voluntarily end his own life by ingesting poison, even bemoaning the drags of life that he wasn’t going to miss, even going as far as to say, “Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.” Socrates was old, wise, and frankly, tired of life. He would go on to say:
“To fear death, my friends, is only to think ourselves wise, without being wise: for it is to think that we know what we do not know. For anything that men can tell, death may be the greatest good that can happen to them: but they fear it as if they knew quite well that it was the greatest of evils. And what is this but that shameful ignorance of thinking that we know what we do not know?”
Like many in ancient Greece, Socrates viewed death as nothing to be afraid of and even a virtue — a blessing. The culture that gave birth to this strange philosopher shared his views more often than not, and ancient Greece had extremely liberal feelings about euthanasia. Assisted suicide and euthanasia were practiced in ancient Greece quite often, and doctors were actually charged with both tasks — to treat and to kill their patients when necessary, which was just seen as a necessary transition into a different sort of wellness for the patient — the wellness of death. The famed physician of ancient Greece, Hippocrates, separated these functions of killing and healing with the famed Hippocratic Oath, an ethics code which physicians took and swore never to do harm to anyone. The Hippocratic Oath that doctors of old took had them swear to the gods that they wouldn’t give a patient poison, even if the patient asks for the poison.
Ancient Rome
The views about assisted suicide were likewise very liberal in ancient Rome, the mighty empire that was the marvel of the ancient world, at least up until the adoption of Christianity by Emperor Constantine, though euthanasia was outright illegal. The Hippocratic Oath had made doctors swear they wouldn’t do any harm to a patient, such as killing them or helping them kill themselves, though even in ancient Greece, not many people actually abode by the oath, and Rome followed suit, and downright euthanasia was often practiced in secret.
But Rome had a very strange and unusual version of “assisted” suicide, as they essentially did what amounts to giving you permission and the means The ancient Romans were very much concerned with their pagan religion, and likewise, if one wanted to commit suicide, the gods would have to grant it if the person wanted a good afterlife — this also, of course, meant the Roman senate would have to grant it. If someone actually wanted to commit suicide, they would literally fill out an application with the Roman senate, and would then be approved and given hemlock, supposing their reason was considered valid, or denied, if the senate disagreed with their reasoning. The Romans had an extremely relaxed view on suicide, but what was important to them, was obtaining a peaceful afterlife in the process.
Middle Ages
It wasn’t until the domination of Christiandom that euthanasia and assisted suicide — even traditional suicide, became things that were highly taboo and considered sins. The ancient beliefs which were inscribed in The Old Testament scriptures eventually became law in pretty much all of Europe, and the body was considered the temple of God, and thus the destruction of it, a sin under the Christian God. Christian writers considered the prolongation of life a duty that we must fulfill, a duty to their higher power.
However, it was only a matter of time before church authority waned, as it did in the 1700s, and soon people began advocating in favor of euthanasia and assisted suicide again. This advocacy was short-lived though. Soon a backlash grew and the idea of dying voluntarily became extremely unpopular again and was relegated to silence. This backlash was actually so severe, that it still continues on to this day, and the attitude of the people themselves, who weren’t quite ready for such ideas, became etched into our legal codes bit by bit in the west.
Legality
Assisted suicide is currently only legal in a handful of places, and even this legal exception for those who live there is highly conditional. Some of the places where assisted suicide is legal include Canada, Netherlands, England, Wales, Luxembourg, Columbia, Japan, and Switzerland was the first major western nation to legalize the practice in 1940. The following states also allow it: Oregon, Washington, California, Vermont, New Mexico, and most recently Colorado — all have some form of legal assisted suicide. That means that almost anywhere you go, assisted suicide is totally illegal, and likened to murder.
The countries and places with legal euthanasia are even more dismal, supposing you support the idea or find it favorable. Full on euthanasia, that is, the practice of a physician taking the life of a patient who’s terminally ill and voluntarily ready to die, is legal in Canada, Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Columbia. The question on a lot of peoples’ minds today is, “Why?” Is the illegality of euthanasia specters leftover from the opinions of old, laws that have been on the books that we just haven’t found the time to change? Some people think that euthanasia is equal to murder, and some even believe that assisted suicide is equal to murder, or at least being an accessory to murder — is there any merit to this belief?
Contemporary Reasons For Euthanasia
The reasons for euthanasia and, or assisted suicide should be pretty straightforward, for the most part — like Schopenhauer said if there’s one thing we should have the unquestionable right to, our own life should basically be that one thing at the top of the list. Interestingly, many feel that the right to life also includes the right to death, which may seem paradoxical to some, but if we take the view that death is the final act of life, it’s not so alien to us. The other arguments for are things that we don’t so commonly think about, beyond the right to life, such as the almost intuitive feeling that many of us get that we wouldn’t want to be a burden on others, or that we don’t want to live a life that’s not worth living. This was Socrates’ take. The idea that some lives, especially lives filled with pain, suffering, misery, or otherwise prolonged unhappiness, simply might not be worth living, is a view that many take and they put themselves in the shoes of those who have reached a point in life where joy, happiness, or even tolerability are impossible to find.
The pain brought on by some of the most severe illnesses, especially terminal illnesses can be terrifying, likened to the worst of the worst tortures one can endure. The famed physician who practiced assisted suicide in the United States, Jack Kevorkian, likened bone cancer to having the worst toothache of your life in every bone in your body, and it never goes away. This is enough to surely make some people willing to hasten death, rather than die in a deteriorating state of agony and misery. But pain actually doesn’t play as big of a role as we would think in matters of choosing death over life.
There are many other factors people consider when choosing to die voluntarily, and some things which played the biggest role were current depression or a history of depression (which increased the desire to die), religious beliefs (which decreased the desire to die), and other factors like marriage or family one would leave behind. All of this brings us back to square one, that such an individual decision should possibly be a person’s right to decide for themselves because no algorithm or equation could factor in all of these differences that are just part of being who we are.
Contemporary Reasons Against
Some have argued, with the church being largely at the forefront, that legalizing assisted suicide or euthanasia paves the way for a lot of exploitation at the hands of the medical industry. Some believe that it would open the door for force, coercion, or exploitation, on the behalf of doctors, or even on the behalf of spouses who might receive a hefty paycheck in the event of their significant others’ death. They also tend to point to what most studies have shown to be the case, that the elimination of physical pain is not the primary or sole motive in one choosing death over life, but is often depression or feelings of hopelessness.
Palliative care is often offered as a solution, an alternative to both assisted suicide and euthanasia, where patients’ deep existential concerns about being diagnosed with a terminal illness are addressed by trained professionals — as such a diagnosis often kicks off a firestorm of emotions, depression usually being the leading feeling that people go through, but also anger, confusion, sadness, and more, which render someone less than completely sound, to say the least, in making the judgment to end their lives. They further add that it’s not necessary, though these arguments tend to underestimate the power of depression and reduce pain to only physical pain, disregarding emotional pain as a given.
There is also the debate as to whether a right for someone to die should solidify the right to demand the services of someone else to either kill them or assist them while they kill themselves. This takes us back to Hippocrates and his separation of the doctor from the executioner, arguing that treating life is the diametric opposite of ending it.
The Good Death
The word “euthanasia” actually comes from ancient Greek, and is a compound of two words, “eu” which roughly translates to “good,” and “thanatos,” which roughly translates to death — this further tells us where the minds of the ancient Greeks were on the subject. The Greeks saw death as a natural part of life and merely a transition into the next plane of existence, a very necessary one at that. Virtue ethics, a strong suit of the ancient Greeks, plays a major role in the belief that one can die a virtuous death, a courageous death, and can exit in a manner that’s consistent with their principles of what a good life should be.
Euthanasia and assisted suicide aside, philosophical suicide is a very real thing that people actually subscribe to, and it follows this same principle of “living a good death,” so to speak. Philosophical suicide is when someone chooses to die (by one’s own hand), not because they’re woefully depressed or pitifully joyless, but because they have a well-reasoned philosophical belief that their time to die is at hand and that they should accept it and exit gracefully in a way they find desirable.
This idea could obviously be imbued into the argument for euthanasia, and, or assisted suicide. Sometimes it’s just as simple as the belief in “the good death,” being the thought that one should be able to have a choice in death, to die by suicide or assisted suicide, rather than to wait until one has no control over one’s own death. The act of making the decisions is a fundamental cornerstone of the virtue ethics of dying, and shouldn’t be taken lightly. If death is a choice made in life, why should anyone deprive us of it? A vital central role in the idea of euthanasia today comes from all the way back in ancient times in Greece, and the point still hits home for many of us who are thinking about this very subject in the new millennium.
Jack Kevorkian and Beyond
Jack Kevorkian is the name almost synonymous with assisted suicide (and erroneously, euthanasia as well), after he went on for decades advocating for the legalization of assisted suicide, as well as actually carrying out assisted suicides as a practicing physician. This was all done in the United States, where assisted suicide was illegal at the time. After a series of arrests and incarcerations over the years, Kevorkian was stripped of his medical license and he could no longer practice medicine after several assisted suicides. But that’s when Kevorkian would up the ante the most when he performed an actual act of euthanasia on a person who’d wished to die, plunging the plunger of the syringe into the person which was aired on the popular prime time television show, 60 Minutes. Kevorkian was brought up on charges of murder and convicted and imprisoned.
But this wasn’t without its results. This reignited the debate about assisted suicide and euthanasia with a new fervor, and people began discussing it, giving new-world opinions as members of a modern-day society, with new and fresh insight into the practice that’s been going on for thousands of years. It was after this point that many of the aforementioned states in the United States legalized physician-assisted suicide. The discussion is now on the world stage and is being had in many places on Earth, possibly even right this very second that you’re reading this. The internet has also provided people with a means to discuss euthanasia, and, or physician-assisted suicide, and in the new culture of today, the old ideals are starting to be overturned. Perhaps there are more answers for us to find, more things we’ve yet to think of to contribute to the discussion, and it’s by having those discussions in the first place that we figure out what those things are. There are merits to both sides of the equation, and as we hammer those merits out, we can craft a more coherent idea, both personally, and as respective societies in regards to what this means to us, and whether or not assisted dying is an acceptable practice, compatible with our ways of life.
© 2019; Joe Duncan. All Rights Reserved
