Back in 2014 I wrote here about a healthy two-year-old giraffe named Marius, who, amid much controversy, was euthanized by the Copenhagen Zoo to make room for “a genetically more valuable giraffe,” as the zoo’s scientific director rather indelicately put it. An international zoo official supported his decision, saying that critics (most of them, apparently, American) should think less about Marius and more about “the bigger picture.” As I commented at the time, these two zoo folk weren’t – aren’t – alone; they belong to a contemporary breed of people, particularly thick on the ground in northern Europe, who think this way not just about animals but, yes, about human beings.
These “bigger picture” types would be quick to deny that there’s anything morally dubious about their position. On the contrary, as I wrote in my 2014 piece, they’re “certain that they are noble and good. They believe in the cycle of life. They believe in quality of life. They just don’t happen to believe in the individual life.” Often, I added, they contrast themselves to “sentimentalists” – many of them, yes, Americans – “who don’t grasp that every individual life is only part of a larger design, a ‘bigger picture,’ and should be extinguished the moment it becomes burdensome or inconvenient.” I suggested that “there exists a certain continuity between this way of thinking and that which made possible the horrors of the Final Solution.”
In 2014, “active euthanasia,” which means administering a lethal drug, was allowed in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. Period. When I revisited the topic in a 2018 article, it was also permitted in Colombia and Canada. India allowed “passive euthanasia,” i.e. withholding artificial life support, while other jurisdictions – Switzerland, Germany, South Korea, Japan, and several U.S. states – prohibited euthanasia per se but allowed “physician-assisted suicide.”
On August 18 of this year, I was shocked to read in the New York Times that a friend of mine, the writer Norah Vincent, had died on July 6 at age 53. After making some inquiries, I discovered that her death had taken place at a Swiss institution specializing in assisted suicide. Norah, whom I’ve already written about at length, wasn’t physically ill or in physical pain when she chose to die; she doesn’t even seem to have been racked by deep depression. In her final days she was able to laugh and joke; in the very last picture of her, taken the day before her death, she has a big smile on her face.
But then perhaps she was in such good spirits precisely because she knew she was about to go. Norah had long been fascinated by death. In her last moments she thought she was embarking on a great adventure. Those of us who can’t relate to such feelings – who find them more terrifying than the scariest movie ever – are very, very lucky.
After my article about Norah’s death appeared, I received a Facebook message from a stranger in the Netherlands whose mother had chosen to be euthanized when she was dying of cancer. This woman felt that I’d been too critical of assisted suicide. In fact I’d tried to focus my piece on Norah and not on my own views. I’ve had beloved pets “put down” or “put to sleep,” as they say, when they were dying and in pain. I can’t criticize human beings who, under such circumstances, want the same option for themselves.
But what about Norah’s case? I admitted to this woman that I was troubled by Norah’s choice – but I would never condemn her for it, or condemn Norah’s and my mutual friend who had traveled to Switzerland with her to be present at the end. How could I dare to? Yes, I wrote, “the idea of it still chafes against ideas about the sacredness of life that I was brought up with. As someone who’s had loved ones with serious psychiatric problems, I can’t help feeling that with better psychiatric care Norah might still be alive, and happy.” Then again, I hadn’t been in touch with Norah for many years; meanwhile our mutual friend, a brilliant, good, and sensitive woman, had been extremely close to her, and she’d concluded that Norah was living with an increasingly malignant psychic demon that would never let her go.
No, I wouldn’t ever criticize Norah or our mutual friend. But the people who agitate to legalize “assisted suicide”? The people whose chosen profession it is to “assist” at these suicides, and then go home to have dinner with their loved ones? And the people, some of them doctors and psychiatrists, who’ve even been known to suggest assisted suicide as an option to people in need of medical or psychiatric care? Them I’ll criticize.
In Norway, where I live, assisted suicide is still illegal. But “death panels” are a reality, with certain expensive life-or-death treatments being routinely denied on account of cost. Over the years there have been debates about the morality of further rationing medical procedures. Every now and then there’s an op-ed or TV debate on the question: “How much is an extra year of life worth?” Now, the reason why northern European welfare states instituted sky-high tax rates in the first place was so that there would never have to be such debates. Then Norway started pouring millions of dollars every year into the coffers of the UN and other pernicious international organizations as well as into the pockets of Third World dictators. Then there are the ever-growing number of immigrants who arrive at Oslo airport with their hands out, and the tons of cash the government gives to mosques run by hate preachers. If the people who wrote government budgets had their priorities in order, there wouldn’t be a need for debates about the cost of health care.
What these debates remind us is that the ultimate danger of permitting euthanasia and assisted suicide is that a choice that’s now being made by patients may sooner or later be made by government officials or hospital authorities against the will of patients. On the road to that hell, moreover, there’s a point beyond which people who aren’t as fiercely determined to die as Norah was are cajoled into doing so. Nor is it unreasonable to worry that a greater legitimization of suicide will make it look attractive to people who otherwise would never have contemplated it. (If this sounds unlikely, look at the countless young people who in the last few years have been seduced by the transgenderism trend.)
No country on earth, perhaps, has traveled further down this road than Canada, which has allowed assisted suicide since 2016. Last year, according to an October 11 article by Rupa Subramanya, assisted suicide accounted for more than 3% of deaths in Canada, and nearly 5% in Quebec and British Columbia. (“Progressive Vancouver Island,” Subramanya writes, “is unofficially known as the ‘assisted-death capital of the world.’”) More and more Canadians under age 45 are choosing to die in this fashion, and doctors have increasingly broadened the range of people whom they consider acceptable candidates for death. Next year, Canada’s federal government “is scheduled to expand the pool of eligible suicide-seekers to include the mentally ill and ‘mature minors.’” Subramanya recounts the alarming story of an Ontario woman, Margaret Marsilla, who discovered a few weeks ago that her 23-year-old son, Kiano Vafaeian, blind in one eye owing to diabetes, had scheduled a September 22 appointment with a doctor named Joshua Tepper to end his life. When Marsilla went public with the details, Dr. Tepper canceled the appointment.
A Toronto oncologist named Ellen Warner told Subramanya that, as “an old-fashioned Hippocratic Oath kind of doctor,” she’s “100 percent against” physician-assisted suicide. Ponder that for a moment: “old-fashioned Hippocratic Oath kind of doctor.” The Hippocratic Oath was good enough for Hippocrates (born about 460 B.C.) and it was good enough for my father and his entire generation of doctors; but now it’s “old-fashioned.” Indeed, Subramanya spoke with another physician, British Columbia psychiatrist Derryck Smith, who views the rise in Canadian deaths from assisted suicide as a positive development and who told Subramanya that he “never took the Hippocratic Oath…because he thought it was ‘archaic.’”
Subramanya also quotes Canadians whose suicide plans are based at least in part on financial considerations. Assisted suicide, one of them told her, “is the new society safety net”; another said that her daughter had told her that, given their budget problems, they wouldn’t be able to get by and would have to apply for assisted suicide.
The people applying to die aren’t the only ones who are thinking about money, of course. For government officials in Canada, as for their counterparts in other countries, assisted suicide is a splendid way to reduce health-care costs. It’s thrifty. It’s green. It helps, as Ebenezer Scrooge might put it, to “reduce the surplus population.” And even as the elites increasingly encourage the rabble to throw in the towel, those elites themselves will continue to fly halfway around the world, if necessary, to get the best treatment for their own ailments. Last month, Canadian newspapers reported a story that wasn’t the first – and won’t be the last – of its kind: a veteran who’d applied to Veterans Affairs for treatment for PTSD and a traumatic brain injury was instead offered the option of assisted death.
One critic of assisted suicide, Norwegian author Jan Grue, wrote a novel called Det blir ikke bedre (It Won’t Get Better, 2016) in which he imagines a future Norway that aims to be “the best of all possible societies.” To that end, the state incentivizes unhappy people to avail themselves of the opportunity to be put to sleep. The utilitarian mentality that is widespread in countries like Norway, Grue warned in an interview, can reinforce the notion “that there are many lives that are not worth living.” Making the opposite argument was the movie Me Before You, also from 2016 (and based on a 2012 novel by Jojo Boyes), in which Will (Sam Claflin), an athletic banker, is rendered quadraplegic by an accident. When his young carer, Louisa (Emilia Clarke), learns that he intends to undergo assisted suicide, she tries to bring meaning to his life and change his mind. They fall in love – but Will goes ahead with his plans nonetheless, because, we’re meant to understand, in the long run she’ll be better off without him.
As Jan Grue has commented, this film’s message is “that disabled people should die so other people can be grateful to be alive.” Is this really the direction in which the Western world wants to go? Let’s hope Me Before You’s overwhelmingly glowing audience reviews on Rotten Tomatoes (“most amazing film ever,” “loved it,” “I cried,” etc.) are merely reflective of the callow tastes of a certain kind of filmgoer, presumably young, dumb, and female, and not representative of the broader public’s real view of the disposability of physically imperfect human beings. In any event, at a time when more and more Americans – including mainstream political leaders – apparently support abortion right up to the moment of birth, I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising that many of the same people consider adults to be disposable as well.
Bawer gives us a very thoughtful and sensitive article. It’s something that evokes mixed feelings for me. Coming from a family with mental illness, choosing life was never taken for granted. Still I can’t deny another their choice to live on their terms. I anguish over the abuse of such a freedom as I know many who’ve made a poor choice. Still I find it hard to ask the state to stop someone from ending their life. It pains me to say that as I respect your concerns.
I hope you have friends and/or family who are supportive of you nearby. Although it can be difficult to find a mental health professional one can feel comfortable with, I hope you have done this or will do so soon. Of course I can’t know your personal details and don’t presume anything. Nevertheless, I truly wish you well.
Somebody thought Bawer was “too critical of assisted suicide”? That’s shocking. He only compares it to the Final Solution….
This article is a wonderful example of the “slippery slope” fallacy, in which an argument is taken to its most ridiculous conclusions in order to make it seem unacceptable. It also begins with the fallacy of “weak analogy”, since the decision to euthanize an individual giraffe to create more genetic variation in the overall captive giraffe population has absolutely nothing to do with individuals choosing to end their own lives.
Speaking of, I thought this magazine was in favor of individual making choices about their own lives. Guess not so much.
Thank you for your comment that has caused me to re-think the slippery slope fallacy. Slippery slope can, indeed, be a logical fallacy, but not always or necessarily so.
Mr. Bawer’s article deals with a sensitive, complex and volatile issue with many sub-issues. As such, it brings out the “grey foxes and grey wolves” in the black and white world of absolutes where we live more comfortably.
I found a very helpful page. Reading it has caused me to believe Mr. Bawer does not argue fallaciously. It even gives the example of voluntary assisted suicide as a slippery slope argument:
The logic for or against fallacy can still be argued. Fallacy would depend upon the strength of the causal relationship between introducing legal assisted suicide and the expanse of legal suicide for more varied and less serious reasons, including utilitarian arguments about the cost of life. It is impossible to do that without considering “life unworthy of life.”
Slippery Slope is not always a fallacy. I think it is not here. We humans have too many examples of acting upon the “life unworthy of life” principle that creates a genocide on the way to “utopia.”
The crucial, fundamental, slippery slope in this context lies in the government funding and interfering in medicine for altruistic purposes. In the 1960s the liberals argued that they would never dream of interfering or controlling the doctors or their patients. They would never dream of installing complete, socialized, medicine. All they wanted to do through Medicare and Medicaid was simply pay the bills of the elderly and the poor and nothing more.
But he who pays the piper has the power to call the tune and eventually does call the tune — every tune, in every way. That’s the crucial, fundamental, SLIPPERY SLOPE we are dealing with in medicine, as well as in public education. And in every industry the government funds and interferes with, in any way, to any degree, for altruistic purposes, in the name of “noble” altruism, for the so-called “common good”.
“The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” – Ronald Reagan
“Mr.Chambers, Mr.Chambers, don’t get on that ship! The book, “To serve Man”, it’s, it’s, it’s a cookbook!” – The Twilight Zone, “To Serve Man”
I find the slippery slope argument is most often a true predictor of cultural norms given the nature of mankind. It’s akin to the old adage, “give them an inch and they’ll take a mile”.
There will always be people who are never satisfied with the norms of society, even though those norms have benefitted society for millennium. For example, marriage brings society order as it protects the family, women and children, The unsatisfied will push their ideas for change because of their self-centered feelings, denying the real harm their plan causes women and children, and the chaos brought to society.
Throughout all of history every society deemed ‘marriage’ was reserved for one man and one woman. The slippery slope started when the legal definition was broken in 2015 – because society “should stay our of their bedroom.” Now, only 7 years later, these same people are working hard to totally destroy the family by insisting men can be women, children can “choose” their gender, biological men can compete against biological women. These same people are trying to ‘normalize’ pedophilia and all sexual laws that protect women and children as well as bring order to our society.
Clearly, the slippery slope argument is not a “fallacy” … we gave them an inch and they will not stop their destruction until chaos reigns.
I wish to amend my comment to read: “Throughout history, most societies deemed ‘marriage’ was reserved for one man and one woman”.
More signs we are barreling towards End Times.
End time indeed. Proof in that a woman chose to die because of demons in her mind. Satin given more freedom. “Abortion” up until 30 days post birth. It is also as murder. Humanism extremes such as transgenderism. Genetic manipulation.
I hope that before I become a vegetable or am left in unbearable pain that I will if I choose, have a dignified death. However no one except the individual should be able to make that decision.
Canada seems to be proud that it is the world leader of euthanasia.
Is this because they are the first to trial the U.N. Agenda 2030 which openly calls for depopulation?
Individual suicide is a tragic thing and I have faced criticism for calling it selfish because it passes the pain onto those who love the victim most.
Morally wrong, as Bruce points out are those who encourage and celebrate it.
Judaism considers suicide a sin. That’s all most people need to know. And I doubt that most denominations of Christianity would disagree with that opinion. “What about the people in Masada?” one might ask. First, did the first Roman troops into that mountain fortress actually find everybody except one old woman, a convenient witness, dead, or did they kill them and invent the narrative for Flavius Josephus to write? (Or did Flavius Josephus invent it? He was a pretty creative writer and his great speech attributed to the leader is a beauty.) And if nearly everybody did choose death over slavery and dishonor, can we excuse them, as G0d presumably would have? How do we excuse the suicide of King Saul, whose alternative was again slavery and dishonor as he was surrounded by enemy troops and had no chance of rescue? He is generally regarded as a great man who unfortunately went mad at the end of his life and that excuses him.
But for someone who feels bad, or has some other trivial reason? Would someone really want to trade eternal joy in the next world for a short remission of suffering in this world, where everyday suffering is inevitable and should be faced with resolve? If a person in intractable pain and at the end stage of a terminal disease chose to end his life I would not criticize him, though I would condemn his doctors for not keeping him more comfortable. But for anyone else? The word is sin, and it’s a real thing.
“Judaism considers suicide a sin. That’s all most people need to know.”
Yeh, that’s the big problema.
The concept of sin is not exactly a rational argument against suicide or anything else. Blind obedience to a supernatural authority and his alleged revelations written in an ancient book leaves a human being helpless in the face of life’s complex situations requiring careful reasoning and thought.
Blind obedience to a supernatural authority is only sufficient for the lazy, complacent, dim-witted, those seeking power over emotionally and intellectually, submissive, prostrated others, or the Nazi and Jihadist.
Bawer is exactly on target connecting this new “morality” to the Nazi final solution. And does anyone want to see a physician who disbelieves in “first, do no harm?” Really? If it’s harm, it should not happen. Even to a giraffe.
We have palliative care and hospice to aid those suffering with incurable
Illnesses. That’’s enough.
I have read that this trend could be associated with the organ transplant business. I wonder if this is a lucrative business in that and possibly in other ways. Imagine the eager ((greedy) relatives eying what they might inherit and turning their old auntie in to the state for a quick disposal.
A society is either moral or it isn’t.
Who are you to decide that palliative is “enough” for everyone? Who are you to make that decision for the whole world?
This is a hugely important moral question. It should be discussed and debated. Introducing “organ transplant” conspiracy theories is a way to avoid real debate.
This is a great article on how narcissim is becoming an all too powerful inflience in our society
These very same governments recently declared huge portions of their populations ” non essential “, how does that play mentally?
This news of Ms.Vincent’s nihilistic suicide is shocking. I read her book “Self-made Man” back in 2006 and went to a talk and book signing of hers. I shook her hand and congratulated her on her really good book. But, sorry to say, I haven’t read any of her other books. I had no idea she suffered from so much mental anguish.
Her suicide in some ways reminds me of Iris Chang’s suicide it was said at the time that Ms.Chang’s research into the depravity of the Rape of Nanking had shattered her belief in mankind and led her into a spiral of depression. But I don’t know to what extent that is true, there seems to have been other factors involved in her suicide…
This topic of suicide, assisted suicide, and government assisted suicide, is a huge and profound topic. There is a lot to ponder and discuss.
A proper government, most definitely, has no moral right to be involved in assisted suicide, other than defending the individual’s right to self-ownership over her body, mind, property, and life. This is why a complete separation of economics (human action) and state is necessary. A proper government should not be involved in promoting or funding any form of suicide but then again a proper government has no right to be involved in any funding or economic interference in the medical industry or any industry at all.
“When I say “capitalism,” I mean a full, pure, uncontrolled, unregulated laissez-faire capitalism—with a separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church.” – Ayn Rand
“But then perhaps she was in such good spirits precisely because she knew she was about to go. Norah had long been fascinated by death. In her last moments she thought she was embarking on a great adventure. Those of us who can’t relate to such feelings – who find them more terrifying than the scariest movie ever – are very, very lucky.”
The romanticizing and even glorification of death in the West (as well as the East) is a legacy of mysticism, supernaturalism, and religion, specially Christianity. A rational understanding of death would result in an individual understanding that death is literally — NOTHING — there’s nothing and no one there to experience, to know, to love or love you back, or to look forward to. There is no there, there. Death is extinction of consciousness forever, lights out forever, end of story, end of journey.
The more a person believes that there is an eternal after-life, the more she will discount this mortal life. In fact, if an eternal life in a gorgeous, beautiful, perfect, Heaven-Utopia did exist, and we knew it as a proven fact, it would necessary to live this life, in order to live this life out to its natural end, as if that Heaven-Utopia did NOT exist.
Upon the death of her husband Ayn Rand is reported to have said words to the effect of “Don’t expect me to live many years beyond Frank, people can survive anything, except the death of their most precious loved ones.” People sometimes survive even that.
“Suicide is an act of total despair (or total nihilism), and one should never give up on life and value lightly. Death is not an alternative to life; for an organism, death is nonexistence. Death is not a state, it is the absence of states. Death is certainly not the cure for imperfections in one’s happiness.
So suicide is not justified by mere emotional distress or ordinary dangers and threats. It is definitely not justified by dissatisfaction. There are many ways in which life can flourish, and many harms which one can survive and learn to live beyond. To attempt suicide in the vast majority of difficult situations is a betrayal of one’s own life and values. One should never consider suicide before one has truly thrown oneself body and soul into the attempt to find a way to live: to escape the concentration camp, to find a cure for one’s illness, to stick out a wave of depression, to ignore social pressures, to move to a new place, or to seek a new career.” – Editor at “The Atlas Society”
This shows wisdom and an understanding that life has an intrinsic value. Of course we should love our lives, as John Galt says, and cherish every day we have of them, even if we are among the many who believe that this world is not the only one that we will inhabit.
Rand’s remark that she did not expect to survive her beloved husband for long is not something uncommon. I don’t know how long she lived after Mr. O’Connor died but many people do not survive a spouse for long, especially if the marriage was one of long standing. Consider your grandparents and other elderly relatives and, if they had long, happy marriages. Clearly a significant relationship is life-enhancing and life-extending. And the increasing absence of such relationships is probably what is causing people to want to die as their lives have no value to anyone else or to themselves.
The fact that in California where i live Mountain Lions get better protection then do the unborn
Only owning someone gives you the right to make [him] live against [his] will. Are you some kind of divinity? And the fact that even if the suicide “is making a mistake”, neither [he], you, me, nor anyone else will never know even what this phrase means in this case. There is a lesson to be learned from that.
Also, the fact that the dinosaurs lasted around 200 million years but men, or whatever, so far only ca. 200 thousand; plus the fact that life itself had to wait to start only 13 billion years or so, means that [God] loves empty space more than [H]e loves us. No surprises there. And Pascal confessed that he was afraid of empty space, He never got around to telling anybody how he felt about full space.
Mengele’s genes migrated too heavy in Canada.