"To be a Burden is to be Truly Human"
This column from the London Times by columnist Mary Kenny is both wise and humble. In responding to the brittle assertion by a BBC host that she (the host) supports assisted suicide, in part because she doesn't wish to be burdened by her aging parents (which I blogged about here), Kenny has a profound and truly compassionate response. After warning about the insidious message that assisted suicide advocacy can (mostly unintentionally) send to the young and impressionable, she writes:
"I'll-die-when-I-want-to isn't just about being spared terminal pain. It is also about being independent, 'autonomous', 'liberated', free from ever being a 'burden' on anyone else: it is about being in control of one's destiny at all times and in all ways.
"Dear me. How pitiful to have lived for over half a century on this planet and not to have observed that the very core of being human is admitting of dependence upon others. There is such a thing as society, and we are all part of it. Our interdependence is part of our humanity, and indeed, our civilisation. Only an automaton is autonomous. We are all burdens upon each other at various cycles of our lives; but we grow in bearing one another's burdens and draw enlightenment and wisdom from the experience.
"To see a man who was once big and strong and bestrode his world like a colossus now reduced to the frailty of extreme old age; or to see a woman who once ruled her domestic dominion like an empress now sweetly accepting of a second childhood--this is to understand that it is vulnerability that makes human beings heroic, not strength and dominance and power. The poignant heart of humanity is vulnerability: if we don't understand that, we are indeed as the brute beasts of the fields, with whom the euthanasia lobby so often likes to draw a parallel, calling to be put down like their own domestic animals."
Wow. What a powerful expression of true compassion, the root meaning of which means to "suffer with." Read the entire column. Regardless of one's position about assisted suicide, Mary Kenny provides much for us to ponder.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 7:18 PM
18 Comments
18 Comments:
Yes, we are all interdependent on one another. That doesn't mean that we have a "duty" to keep living at all costs, or to die in a way that others deem fit.
That would be slavery.
Did you read the article? No one is promoting keeping people alive at all costs. The duty is to provide care and alleviate suffering, not end life.
Read the article. It will do you good.
But isn't that what she's advocating? "Suffer with them" seems to be a euphemism for taking choice away and compelling them to die naturally. Sometimes conventional palliation fails, and the patient has to be put into a coma in order to relieve pain.
Rarely, but that isn't killing. Besides, in your ideology, that doesn't matter. All that matters is autonomy.
She is referring to caring deeply for people, to the point that you put yourself truly out for another's welfare. That is the true root meaning of compassion, to suffer with.
Not sure you can get that, but there it is.
You should also consider this reply, Wesley.
"Mary Kenny is wrong about the Inuit (Eskimos), and very patronising. Their failure to develop technically was due to the extreme difficulty of survival in an unforgivable environment. Their emotional and intellectual development did not suffer, as has been shown by ethnologists of many nations who have studied them. Leaving the elderly to die when they were beyond aiding the group in providing food was a necessary survival strategy that enabled the group to get through periods of famine."
That is irrelevant to the situation today, Winston Jen. That was a matter of tribe survival. Native Americans from what is now the American Midwest practiced a similar approach, but once they got the horse, they stopped and brought their ill and infirm with them on litters.
Once again, you mix apples and oranges. Sad, really.
You're sad too, by the way. You want to force people to live against their will until they are fortunate to die naturally.
There are many forms of psychological suffering that the best palliative care cannot help.
Ah yes, and we get to the nub of your ideology: Death on demand. You keep making my arguments for me.
What's wrong with your OWN death on your OWN demand?
Can you honestly say that you'd want to die naturally, no matter what the pain, both physcial and psychological?
If so, let me contact your hospice so I can steal all of their morphine, diamorphine and other painkillers.
Death from terminal sedation is not natural.
I can honestly say I don't want people who think like you having anything whatsoever to do with my medical care, Winston Jen. Palliative sedation, if done right, does not kill. The patient dies naturally.
You advocate death on demand based on a hyper-radical notion of personal autonomy. Illness, heartache, have nothing whatsoever to do with it. All that matters is desire. So quit pretending it is about anything other than that. Embrace Nitschke's call for suicide pills being made available to troubled teenagers.
That is stark abandonment of our suffering brothers and sisters, but at least it is honest.
"I can honestly say I don't want people who think like you having anything whatsoever to do with my medical care, Winston Jen. Palliative sedation, if done right, does not kill. The patient dies naturally."
Terminal sedation involves increasing doses of morphine. It is NOT natural. The morphine wins the race.
Perhaps we should call cancers that kill in under three months "compassionate cancer".
"You advocate death on demand based on a hyper-radical notion of personal autonomy. Illness, heartache, have nothing whatsoever to do with it. All that matters is desire. So quit pretending it is about anything other than that. Embrace Nitschke's call for suicide pills being made available to troubled teenagers."
You can't prevent ALL suicides. At least make it painless.
Then again, the Peaceful Pill would reduce the social stigma on suicide, which would encourage teenagers to discuss their problems, which could actually reduce the suicide rate.
"That is stark abandonment of our suffering brothers and sisters, but at least it is honest."
I don't know about you, but I'd rather be treated by Doctor Death than Doctor Pain.
You have revealed your true colours, as has Mary Kenny.
You are both sadists - that is, you are in love with the pain of others.
There is a substantial difference in the normal burden of a person with old age than the burden of a brain dead vegetable.
And i agree that if i ever become like Terry Schaivo, just a complete burden with no help for recovery than i would like to be euthanased.
I think it is ridiculous to value the right of life at all costs, there must be recognizable situations in which the quality of life is so poor that it should be totally that person's choice to die or not.
To disagree is to cover your eyes blindly and run around in circles praising life in ignorance for the simple belief that life is better at all costs.
If you were really anti-suicide, Wesley, you'd campaign to make self-starvation and force everyone who needs a ventilator to be hooked up to one, whether they want to or not.
You would do well to consider the counterarguments made here -
http://www.fstdt.com/comments.asp?id=13468
Especially this one:
It is fundie because the poster cannot tell the difference between robbery of assets, against the express interests of the people to whom they belong, and assistance in voluntarily and willingly giving up a life, in the express interests of the person to whom it belongs and who wants to give it up.
The poster is claiming that just because both are illegal, they are inherently comparable, when in fact they are worlds apart morally; just because there is a law against something does not necessarily mean that it is a good law or that the thing it proscribes is automatically always bad.
Winston Jen: Allowing oneself to die a natural death is not suicide. Nor, is opposition to legalizing assisted suicide in any way vitalism. As with most euthanasia enthusiasists, you are ever about the task of redefining terms and blurring morally distinguisable concepts.
"Winston Jen: Allowing oneself to die a natural death is not suicide."
Yes it is. If the patient wanted to live, they wouldn't stop the treatment. The difference between not going through cancer treatment and a lethal injection is the time taken until death. That's all. Spontaneous remissions are extremely rare.
"Nor, is opposition to legalizing assisted suicide in any way vitalism."
Perhaps not, but consciousness means nothing to you.
Neither does consent, apparently.
"As with most euthanasia enthusiasists, you are ever about the task of redefining terms and blurring morally distinguisable concepts."
Look who's talking. You claimed that pain relief from morphine can help extend life, even though it clearly suppresses breathing. Who's being intellectually dishonest NOW?
Winston Jen: My comment about pain control possibly extending life came from a pain control expert physician, and is based on the increased vitality available to patients when they aren't in agony. Like any medical treatment, pain control can also shorten life. No redefining here.
Look up the definition of suicide. Dying a natural death ain't it.
"Winston Jen: My comment about pain control possibly extending life came from a pain control expert physician, and is based on the increased vitality available to patients when they aren't in agony. Like any medical treatment, pain control can also shorten life. No redefining here."
No, you just neglected to mention the side-effect of suppressing breathing until now.
"Look up the definition of suicide. Dying a natural death ain't it."
Self-starvation isn't a natural death, and yet that seems to be the only acceptable method of suicide acceptable to you.
Secondly, since when was palliative care perfect? It has failed in practice before.
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