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Here's a really bad first draft of an essay on the Latimer case that I probably need to totally rewrite from the opposite position because I don't really agree with myself. But whatever. If you care enough to read it...
“To be or not to be...”
The race of man has been puzzled with the question of when it is acceptable to end one’s life since even before the time of Shakespeare’s posing of the famous question, asking his audience “... whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them?” This is essentially the question we are asking when we examine cases of euthanasia, the ending of a person’s life either through withholding treatment that would extend that life or actively taking steps to end it, either by consent of a competent patient, or lacking such consent if the patient is incompetent. Given that any time we are attempting to justify the act of taking a person’s life, the potential for abuse and the harm that could result from this abuse is significant, a thorough examination of each case is clearly warranted. But although we may be understandably wary of the social and legal implications of permitting this sort of life-ending, it is also the case that the constant physical pain of those directly involved seems, at least practically, more relevant than the abstract implications in any specific case. I contend, though many of the challenges to euthanasia in general and the case I will examine merit serious consideration and though we should bear them constantly in mind while applying this conclusion, that the “right” to die should exist under certain circumstances.
In the case of Robert and Tracy Latimer, the relevant circumstances were as follows. First, Tracy was most certainly in pain. Although she was unable to express herself, this fact was evident as a result of her behaviour, and for some reason either unknown or undisclosed, it was not possible to treat her with any strong pain medication.3 This resulted in Robert Latimer seeking what he calls a “more effective pain medication”.4 Critics will accuse Latimer of here attempting to disguise the facts of the case; he did not treat his daughter, he killed her. But while death cannot constitute an improvement to one’s “health” in the traditional sense, it is certainly far from absurd to assert that it could constitute an improvement to one’s state of being. There are certainly hypothetical situations in which most of us could imagine ourselves, wherein we would consider death an improvement. Were I to be captured by a sadist who was to torture me for several decades with no chance of escape or relief, I would prefer to die than undergo such torture only to find that same “sleep” of death at the end of it all.5
But is this such a case? It is important to identify that, owing to Tracy’s inability to competently express her wish to die, Robert’s actions constituted involuntary active euthanasia. Some will argue that though admittedly Tracy was able to express pain, she was unable to express whether that pain, in her estimation, was excrutiating enough to bring her to the conclusion that death was the better option. Given her disability, however, it is unlikely that she could be expected even to reach such a conclusion, much less reach one rationally. But certainly the inability to formulate a cogent statement expressing why the pain is too great to bear does not disqualify one from the right to relieve this suffering (if there is indeed such a right). This would be entirely unfair, as competence is irrelevant to the central question of excessive suffering. As a result, the decision must be made on her behalf. Again, some will argue that it is absurd to allow those who are not personally experiencing the pain of the individual in question to determine if that pain is too great. But I would contend that those closest to that individual, in this case, Tracy, are those most acutely aware of how great that pain is. Additionally, it is a mistake to divide the groups in such a way as to exclude Tracy from her family. We have little doubt that Robert Latimer suffered a great deal of emotional distress as a result of seeing his daughter suffer for twelve years, unable to relieve that suffering by any other means than ending her life. The family, as John Hardwig tells us, is worthy of consideration, and to isolate Tracy from her parents is to discount an important factor of the case. Why shouldn’t the emotional sufferings of Tracy’s parents be considered relevant if Tracy’s sufferings are? As a result of the close ties of family, especially given the tendency of tragedies to draw families closer together, considering euthanasia in the context of a group decision no longer seems so far-fetched, at least at an individual level. Critics, however, will call our attention to the broader social implications of this decision. Families, they will say, who feel too heavily burdened by a disabled family member, will make the decision to kill that family member whether the euthanised is in intolerable pain or not. Perhaps as a result of this becoming accepted, competent patients who wish to live will be drowned out by the voices of their supposed loved ones, who wish to save themselves a measure of trouble and expense by simply putting the patient not out of his or her misery, but of theirs! Before we are swept up in the dramatics of such arguments, we must recognize that this sort of slippery slope reasoning is as prone to fallacy as the form of euthanasia we have presented is prone to abuse. The rarity of such callous action towards those closest to us aside (in fact the opposite extreme is more often true when it comes to how families regard their suffering loved ones), it is conceivable that such a situation could arise. But is this really so striking a realization? There are a veritable plethora of permissible actions in everyday life wherein there lies the potential for abuse in the minority of cases. For example, when we allow people to drive we are accepting the possibility that they could do so irresponsibly and cause significant injury or death to an innocent bystander... and in this case that bystander is not related to us, and we therefore are assumedly far less inclined to consider the potential harms to him than we are to a close relative! Some will further argue that cases in which a conflict of interest for the family members, such as a large estate being at stake in the will of the patient, will arise, and lead to abuse. But again, this is not an argument against the general principle of euthanasia itself so much as an argument for the necessity of regulating these cases. It is almost constantly true that potential for abuse exists in our society, and it is because of this that we have a legal system to prevent these abuses. There is no reason to say that abuses in euthanasia cannot be prevented in the same way, and therefore, the assertion that accepting euthanasia as we have presented it will necessarily result in unacceptable social consequences is not a persuasive argument.
Yet, some will ask, does preference even matter? Could it not be the case that, even if we accept that the suffering person(s) in question are competent and rational in making his or her (or their) decision to end a life, it might still be wrong simply owing to the inherent value of that life? When an ostensibly ordinary person attempts suicide, it is our intuitive reaction to attempt to stop him, to convince him that killing himself is the wrong action to take, regardless of how he might be feeling at the time. Emotional pain can often be in many ways equivalent to physical pain. So how can we argue against suicide but still support euthanasia? First, let us address what we consider the “inherent value” of a life. When we consider what our “life” consists of, most of us will give a detailed explanation of what they desire to achieve and obtain; a good education, a rewarding career, a loving family, perhaps a legacy of some sort. Few of us will say “my life, to me, consists of the continued operation of my various bodily functions”. In so far as we are addressing the subject within the realm of value theory, to equate the “inherent value” of life with mere subsistence of biological life is an equivocation. This becomes readily apparent when we consider the following: if a life has the same inherent value no matter who it belongs to, then we would say that the death of a healthy twenty year old is equivalent to that of a suffering elderly man with LDS. But most of us will say that the former has more to lose were his life to be cut short, and as a result his life has greater objective “value”, in this sense, to him (whether he knows this or not). If the value of life can be measured in this way, then certainly a person’s life can have so little value that it is no longer the better option that it should be maintained. If the value of life is variable, then it can be superceded by other considerations. Applying this argument to the case of suicide, we can see that one’s judgment may be clouded by emotion or depression, and may not recognize the value of one’s continued life. As a result, it is apparent that even if preference is irrelevant, euthanasia may nonetheless be permissible and justified objectively depending on whether the value of a person’s remaining life is enough to overcome the loss endured by ending it. Does this not, then, entail that whenever the cost of a person’s continued existence in terms of value exceeds the benefits to that individual (or those surrounding him, as we have noted) of keeping him alive, he should be summarily executed? The answer, simply put, is yes. However, this rather surprising response can again be moderated by the notioin that preference does play an important role in determining the actual value of a life. It seems absurd to say that my preference not to die has no bearing on the value of my life. Granted, I may be mistaken about my life’s value; as I write this I may be unaware that tomorrow I will be rendered a suffering incompetent in an automobile accident. Nonetheless, my preference to live seems to have an effect on the value of my life, at least until that preference is reversed, simply because the value of the life of a person who wishes to live will necessarily be significantly greater than that of an otherwise identical person who does not. This again brings us back to the question of suicide. But though a suicidal person’s wish to die certainly affects the quality of his life, the changeability of this situation, not present in the case of a person suffering from LDS, should be enough to temper this factor. Essentially, although value of life as we are measuring it here exists independently of preference, preference is an important factor in making this objective measurement. To apply this to the Latimer case, the value of Tracy’s life, minimal to begin with owing to her lack of awareness as to what is actually happening to her, is further diminshed by the immense pain her condition causes her and her family. The fact that there is no possibility for their situation, individually or as a family, to substantially improve (in fact given that she required progressively more serious surgery it seems more likely that her situation would deteriorate), further decreases the loss suffered when she is finally allowed what can indeed best be described as the relief of passing on. Though we must be careful on a societal level not to allow precedents of this type to facilitate abuse of the system, and therefore be constantly aware of this possibility, the forseeable and therefore preventible chance of abuse is not sufficient to overcome the benefit, in the form of relief, to suffering individuals. When the loss of a life is superceded by the suffering which will result from the continuation of that life, it is no longer a loss in any relevant way, but rather a benefit. Perhaps, then, Robert Latimer’s description of euthanasia as a “more effective medicine” is indeed an apt one.
