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KENNETH R.ROSS
EUCHARIST
See Lord’s Supper
EUTHANASIA
The term euthanasia (literally “good” or “gentle” death or “dying well”) covers a wide range of issues, depending on whether the patient is conscious/competent and/or whether the physician’s conduct is active or passive. Many people distinguish simply between voluntary euthanasia (where a competent, informed person asks another to end his or her life and is not coerced into doing so) and involuntary euthanasia (where a terminally ill person, who does not have the capacity for informed choice, is killed). Because many believe that the person taking the life should be a trained physician, voluntary euthanasia is increasingly termed “physician-assisted suicide.”
However, there are other acts or omissions that may also be seen as forms of euthanasia. A physician may withdraw treatment or medical intervention knowing that this will shorten a comatose patient’s life. Or a conscious patient may refuse life-sustaining treatment even though the physician is willing to continue treatment. Or, again, a patient might leave a Living Will to the effect that he or she does not wish to be treated in the event of serious illness. Given this wide range of possibilities very few people remain wholly for or against every form of euthanasia. Even among advocates of “direct” or “active” euthanasia few recommend that the lives of all of those who are permanently comatose or have severe learning disabilities should be actively terminated.
Among Christians there is no unanimity on euthanasia. On this ethical issue, as on many others, there is a range of beliefs across denominations and within denominations. Even when a particular church takes a firm line against, say, physician-assisted suicide, some of its regular churchgoers will conclude otherwise.
This can be illustrated from opinion poll data. For example, data from British Social Attitudes surveys suggested that most people, including many churchgoers, increasingly support changes in the law that would allow physician-assisted suicide for the terminally ill. Seventy-six percent of the whole sample in the 1980s were in favor of this being allowed for the terminally ill and in the 1990s this rose to 82 percent. Support among monthly churchgoers across denominations during these two decades differed little from the sample as a whole—it was 72 and 84 percent, respectively. It was only among weekly churchgoers that a statistically significant difference emerged, with support at 48 and 45 percent, respectively. Among Anglican weekly churchgoers in the 1980s support rose to 66 percent. Clearest opposition to this form of euthanasia was among Roman Catholic weekly churchgoers: here only 39 percent supported it, although among monthly attenders this rose to 75 percent. Age was not a strong predictor of different attitudes. Even a 1990s question about allowing for euthanasia for those who are simply tired of living showed that 6 percent of weekly churchgoers, as distinct from 12 percent of the sample as a whole, agreed to this.
From a theological perspective it might once have been sufficient simply to argue that human life is God-given and should never be taken by human beings outside a context of a just war or just punishment. However, the dilemmas created by modern medicine seem to make such a clear-cut position increasingly difficult to hold. Is withdrawing life-sustaining medical treatment or intensive nursing care from a patient whose cortex is destroyed tantamount to euthanasia or not? Is withholding life-prolonging treatment with the agreement of conscious but terminally ill patients tantamount to assisted suicide or not? Modern medicine makes such questions unavoidable.
It is often argued by theologians in this context that human life is a gift, a gift from a loving God made known in Jesus Christ. The analogy of the gift relationship finds its foundation in God’s gift of the Logos and continues in the Logos’s gift of life to us. We in turn should respond to this gift with gratitude, thanksgiving, and deep responsibility. In contrast, those who lack this faith may see human life, not as a gracious gift, but as a chance by-product of a world that has meaning only if we choose to give it meaning. In theory at least, this second position allows human beings to shape human life as they will. If people decide to opt for euthanasia then that is their autonomous choice: life can be shaped as they will. Conversely, for Christians life is God-given and is not simply to be shaped by humans as they will, but to be approached gratefully and responsibly.
Yet in the context of modern medicine the contrast between these two positions is not nearly so clear-cut. Christian doctors, committed to the belief that life is God-given, still face the same dilemmas about prolonging the lives of the terminally ill or permanently comatose. Gift relationships are by no means all gracious—some can be highly manipulative, especially the required gifts of submission. Gracious gifts should be treated with gratitude and responsibility, but they may not bind the one to whom they are given—it is manipulative gifts that do that. Gracious gifts can be enjoyed for a while and then shared with, or even returned with gratitude to, the giver. Gracious gifts leave both giver and receiver free. Indeed when Godgiven life becomes nothing but a burden, it might seem appropriate to return that life prayerfully and humbly to the giver.
The 1998 LAMBETH CONFERENCE of Anglican Bishops identified five “bedrock principles” that are crucial to these issues from a Christian perspective:
Life is God-given and therefore has intrinsic sanctity, significance, and worth.
Human beings are in relationship with the created order and that relationship is characterized by such words as respect, enjoyment, and responsibility.
Human beings, although flawed by sin, nevertheless have the capacity to make free and responsible moral choices.
Human meaning and purpose are found in our relationship with God, in the exercise of freedom, critical self-knowledge, and in our relationship with one another and the wider community.
This life is not the sum total of human existence; we find our ultimate fulfillment in eternity with God through Christ.
The bishops argued that a combination of the first, second, and fourth principles precludes either voluntary euthanasia or involuntary euthanasia. They also worried about the consequential dangers of legalizing such forms of euthanasia—especially the danger of abuse, the danger of diminution of respect for human life, and the danger of damaging the doctor/patient relationship. They summarized the dangers as follows:
• the virtual impossibility of framing and implementing legislation that would prevent abuse by the unscrupulous
• a diminution of respect for all human life, especially of the marginalized and those who may be regarded as “unproductive” members of society
• the potential devaluing of worth, in their own eyes, of the elderly, the sick, and of those who are dependent on others for their well-being
• the potential destruction of the important and delicate trust of the doctor/patient relationship
However, they argued that the following are consonant with their Christian principles:
• To withhold or withdraw excessive medical treatment or intervention (e.g., life support) may be appropriate where there is no reasonable prospect of recovery.
• When the primary intent is to relieve suffering and not to bring about death, to provide supportive care for the alleviation of intolerable pain and suffering may be appropriate even if the side effect of that care is to hasten the dying process (i.e., the doctrine of double effect).
• To refuse or terminate medical treatment (such as declining to undertake a course of chemotherapy for cancer) is a legitimate individual moral choice.
• When the person is in a permanent vegetative state to sustain him or her with artificial nutrition and hydration may indeed be seen as constituting medical intervention.
See also Ethics; Ethics, Medical
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