Why is Euthanasia Wrong?

Why is euthanasia wrong? Euthanasia is wrong because it negates and contradicts a

fundamental and grave moral duty: the duty to relieve hopeless suffering.

Euthanasia pretends to be a moral act in the most noble sense of the word, and the very

essence of this pretence is its (pretended) fulfillment of the fundamental and grave moral

obligation to relieve hopeless suffering.

Euthanasia would be a good moral act if it in fact did what it pretends to do. Yet euthanasia is

an evil moral act—because it does the opposite of what it pretends to do. Instead of relieving

hopeless suffering it aggravates and consummates the same hopeless suffering which it

pretends to relieve.

Hopeless suffering cries out for acute and urgent relief.

The fact that it is hopeless suffering means there is no possibility of relief. Nevertheless such

suffering cries out, in a terrible paradox, for precisely that relief which is impossible.

If one argues for the permissibility of euthanasia on the basis of the existence of hopeless

suffering, one is necessarily arguing that the hopelessness in question is something objective.

The objectivity of hopeless suffering is therefore the basis of any sensible discussion of the

morality of euthanasia.

Euthanasia renders homicide as the adequate response to hopeless suffering. This homicide

pretends to be the relief which is sought. (The argument in favor of euthanasia, if one boils it

down, is never that euthanasia does not constitute homicide, but that it constitutes a homicide

which is rationally justified in view of the phenomenon of hopeless suffering.)

But to accept homicide as the adequate response to hopeless suffering is to banalize and

ultimately deny the phenomenon of hopeless suffering.

The homicide which constitutes euthanasia is not simply and inadequate response to call to

relieve hopeless suffering; it is a response which goes in the wrong direction. It does not

relieve; it aggravates. It pretends to empty the chalice of suffering, but instead of emptying it,

it fills it further. It fills it to the brim.

Euthanasia therefore ought not to be confused with palliative therapy for the terminally ill

(pain relief pursued as a good in itself). The progress of medical care in this field is to be

welcomed, applauded and further stimulated—medical care which cannot be reduced to the

exclusively pharmacological, but which always will always must be fully human, and which

therefore has a relation to the miracle of authentic charity, compassion and care for the

suffering fellow human being.

It is, above all, this miracle which trumps the hopelessness of hopeless suffering. The prolife

option, animated by a serene faith in this miracle, is thus far removed from a mere fatalism

and inaction. It is the one position before the phenomenon which rhymes with authentic

human progress

The operating principle behind arguments for euthanasia, thus, is not simply pain relief. It is

rather this idea: that death is the only medicine adequate to relieve hopeless suffering, that

death itself, therefore, is the final good, the good that must be realized.

(Here one catches glimpse of the nucleus of that culture of death named by Pope John Paul II:

a cult of death which is honored as the solution to the Great Curse of hopeless suffering.)

The point to be made here is simply this: that the principle is a false principle: death is the

triumph of hopeless suffering, not the end of it.

While acknowledging the possible good intentions that concrete persons may have or have

had in choosing for euthanasia, it is necessary to conclude that Euthanasia in its essential

structure, does not constitute a realization of human solidarity, but rather, tragically, a betrayal

of human solidarity.

Mercy is a good thing; but that does not make mercy-killing a good thing. It is, indeed a

complex thing (being an evil thing wrapped in a good wrapper, namely a good intention), but

that it is complex means that we need to form our judgment concerning it carefully and

uprightly.

It does not mean that we may reach no conclusions about euthanasia. It does not mean that

there is no conclusion to be made. It does not mean that our conclusion regarding euthanasia

is yes and no. It does not mean that euthanasia is not intrinsically wrong.

A parallel case: It is politically correct to afiirm that terrorism is wrong, and clearly wrong.

Yet terrorism is also a complex reality. One ought to place oneself in the mind of the terrorist.

The terrorist chooses an evil thing wrapped in the good wrapper, which, exactly as in the case

of euthanasia, is a good intention. A terrorist does not kill simply for the sake of killing. (We

have now other names for that phenomenon.) A terrorist is typically someone who has

reasons: he is acting in the name of those who are victimized politically, who endure the

political version of hopeless suffering (Think of the historically persecuted Catholic in

Northern Ireland, the Palestinian…)

Terrorism is a complex thing.

Yet we do not praise the terrorist. Why are we now praising the practitioner of euthanasia?

We are now saying that the practitioner of euthanasia is exercising the highest morality.

But is that so?

I say that it is not so. We praise him because we belong to his tribe. We praise him because he

is buttering our bread and solving our problem: We cannot possibly maintain all the older

people that our aging society is creating (all those useless leaches and eyesores), because it

would crimp our lifestyle, which is of course unthinkable. Therefore certain mechanisms will

be perforce created, and they will be surrounded by a façade of high-mindedness.

Will that not be a perfect exercise of what was once called “social Darwinism,” which in

plain language is human viciousness but then masked under liberal consensus?

The scandal is that hopeless suffering remains, that it remains unacknowledged, that we have

refused to acknowledge it. Merely acknowledging it would be a first step towards salvation,

and here is that first step everything.

We have chosen the way of that priest and that Levite who refused to see the man who had

fallen in the hands of robbers on his way from Jerusalem to Jericho. Those who saw, and

refuse to see.

John of the Cross: “Where there is no love, put love, and there will be love.”

Euthanasia therefore is wrong.

I believe that the moralists and spiritual leaders who have avoided the issue of euthanasia with

that politically correct shrug of the shoulders: Gee, that is a difficult one; why doesn’t

everyone just decide for themselves? have seriously abdicated their proper responsibility: the

responsibility of thought, and the responsibility of speaking out.

Appendix

1. I would like feedback regarding the arguments advanced here. If there is some aspect which

is not expressed clearly I would like to learn how to express it more clearly. If there is

something which ought to be revised in spirit or in letter I would like to work on that.

2. Two authors that are in the background here: a) Pope John Paul II and the thesis regarding

acts which are always and intrinsically evil advanced in Splendor Veritatis b) Elizabeth Anne

Anscombe, the English philosopher, precursor of John Paul II, in the analysis and rejection of

ethical “proportionalism” and in the (re)establishment of the authentic categories of moral

discourse. (Prophetic was her condemnation of the genocidal use of the atomic bomb at

Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the essay “Mr. Truman’s Degree”)

Carl Kuss, L.C.