Euthanasia: Implications that Will Arise

Written by Timothy See Wen Hao


With all the hype surrounding Euthanasia and the possibilities of legalising it, we have to take a step back and properly assess the social, legal and moral implications that may come with legalising it. Far too often, the debate focuses on the individual implications and fail to take into account what other implications may occur on an institutional, societal and governmental level.

In Margaret Somerville's "Would Euthanasia Damage Doctors?", she raised the issue of whether legalizing euthanasia will lead to negative societal impacts on healthcare practitioners and institutions. She argues that "legalizing euthanasia will damage foundational societal value of respect for human life."[1] This is largely due to the function of medical institutions to create value, carry value and form consensus for society as a whole. We have to take into account that the fundamental function of medicine science and practice is to preserve human life and health. Through legalizing euthanasia which includes physician-assisted suicides, we will be infringing on these basic values and destabilizing the core beliefs of medicine practice. In simple terms, doctors are to preserve life and not end it. Allowing physicians and medical professionals to inflict death on patients is an gross contradiction to their purpose of existence.

Legalising euthanasia also brings forth another problem of how we should define who qualifies to be legally euthanised. This is a major factor in the decision making process of legalizing euthanasia in many countries due to the difficulty in determining who should be allowed to die by euthanasia. Often, many scholars and euthanasia-advocates argue that an individual who loses the dignity and value of living should be allowed to die. How can we accurately determine "the value of life"? Is one person's perspective of quality of life applicable to another? These issues make it difficult to draw the line on the allowance of euthanasia. Morag Farquhar mentions in "Definitions of Quality of Life: A Taxonomy" that there are numerous methods of defining and determining quality of life, and each of these methods focus on different determinants.[2] We cannot create a universal index to determine quality of life and apply it to every individual on this planet due to the fact that every one of us value different things in life. A loss of motor abilities in the hands for a professional pianist will be much more devastating as compared to a research analyst or a philosopher due to the difference in requirements for their careers. The loss of a leg for an office worker may not be as devastating as compared to a footballer losing his leg. These examples highlight the fact that we are not homogenous and we all value different things in life, making it difficult to define what truly justifies the act of self-termination through euthanasia.

The implications discussed above are two of the important and crucial factors of the countless other factors and points for debate in the long fight for legality of euthanasia. We have to carefully consider across the spectrum how this one single act of legalising euthanasia will impact every single individual in a community, society or nation. The greatest danger is to implement and legalise euthanasia haphazardly as many effects will be irreversible.

[1] Would Euthanasia Damage Doctors?, Margaret Somerville for Mercator.net

[2] Definitions of Quality of Life: A Taxonomy, Morag Farquhar BSc(Hons) MSc RGN Research Assistant. On pubmed.gov, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7499618