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PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT
NO. 11, THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD,
UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, 8.E.
Price Fourpence.
�I I
�EUTHANASIA.
“ T HAVE already related to you with what care they
J. look after their sick, so that nothing is left
undone wfflich may contribute either to their health or
ease. And as for those who are afflicted with incurable
disorders, they use all possible means of cherishing
them, and of making their lives as comfortable as pos
sible ; they visit them often, and take great pains to
make their time pass easily. But if any have tortur
ing, lingering pain, without hope of recovery or ease,
the priests and magistrates repair to them and exhort
them, since they are unable to proceed with the busi
ness of life, are become a burden to themselves and all
about them, and have in reality outlived themselves,
they should no longer cherish a rooted disease, but
choose to die since they cannot but live in great misery;
being persuaded, if they thus deliver themselves from
torture, or allow others to do it, they shall be happy
after death. Since they forfeit none of the pleasures,
but only the troubles of life by this, they think they
not only act reasonably, but consistently with religion;
for they follow the advice of their priests, the expound
ers of God’s will. Those who are wrought upon by
these persuasions, either starve themselves or take
laudanum. But no one is compelled to end his life
thus ; and if they cannot be persuaded to it, the former
care and attendance on it is continued. And though
they esteem a voluntary death, when chosen on such
authority, to be very honourable, on the contrary, if
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any one commit suicide without the concurrence of the
priest and senate, they honour not the body with a
decent funeral, but throw it into a ditch.”*
Tn pleading for the morality of euthanasia, it seems
not unwise to show that so thoroughly religious a man
as Sir Thomas More deemed that practice so consonant
with a sound morality as to make it one of the customs
of his ideal state, and to place it under the sanction of
the priesthood. As a devout Roman Catholic, the
great Chancellor would naturally imagine that any
beneficial innovation would be sure to obtain the sup
port of the priesthood; and although we may differ
from him on this head, since our daily experience
teaches us that the priest may be counted upon as the
steady opponent of all reform, it is yet not uninstructive to note that the deep religious feeling which dis
tinguished this truly good man, did not shrink from
the idea of euthanasia as from a breach of morality, nor
did he apparently dream that any opposition would (or
could) be offered to it on religious grounds. The last
sentence of the extract is specially important; in dis
cussing the morality of euthanasia, we are not discus
sing the moral lawfulness or unlawfulness of suicide in
general; we may.protest against suicide, and yet uphold
euthanasia, and we may even protest against the one
and uphold the other, on exactly the same principle, as
we shall see further on. As the greater includes the
less, those who consider that a man has a right to
choose whether he will live or not, and who therefore
regard all suicide as lawful, will, of course, approve of
euthanasia; but it is by no means necessary to hold
this doctrine because we contend for the other. On the
general question of the morality of suicide, this paper
expresses no opinion whatever. This is not the point,
and we do not deal with it here. This essay is simply
* Memoirs. A translation of the Utopia, &c., of Sir Thomas
More, Lord High Chancellor of England. By A. Cayley the
Younger, pp. 102, 103. (Edition of 1808.)
�Euthanasia.
5
and solely directed to prove that there are circum
stances under which a human being has a moral right
to hasten the inevitable approach of death. The subject
is one which is surrounded by a thick fog of popular
prejudice, and the arguments in its favour are generally
dismissed unheard. I would therefore crave the reader s
generous patience, while laying before him the reasons
which dispose many religious and social reformers to
regard it as of importance that euthanasia should be
legalised.
In the fourth edition of an essay on Euthanasia, by
P. D. Williams, jun.,—an essay which powerfully sums
up what is to be said for and against the practice in
question, and which treats the whole subject exhaust
ively—we find the proposition, for which we contend,
laid down in the following explicit terms :
“ That in all cases of hopeless and painful illness, it
should be the recognised duty of the medical attendant,
whenever so desired by the patient, to administer
chloroform, or such other anaesthetic as may by-and-by
supersede chloroform, so as to destroy consciousness at
once, and to put the sufferer to a quick and painless
death ; all needful precautions being adopted to prevent
any abuse of such duty; and means being taken to
establish, beyond the possibility of doubt or question,
that the remedy was applied at the express wish of the
patient.”
It is very important, at the outset, to lay down
clearly the limitations of the proposed medical reform.
It is sometimes thoughtlessly stated that the supporters
of euthanasia propose to put to death all persons suf
fering from incurable disorders ; no assertion can be
more inaccurate or more calculated to mislead. We
propose only, that where an incurable disorder is accom
panied with extreme pain—pain, which nothing can
alleviate except death—pain, which only grows worse
as the inevitable doom approaches—pain, which drives
almost to madness, and which must end in the intensi
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Euthanasia.
fied torture of the death agony—that pain should be at
once soothed by the administration of an anesthetic,
which should not only produce unconsciousness, but
should be sufficiently powerful to end a life, in which
the renewal of consciousness can only be simultaneous
with the renewal of pain. So long as life has some
sweetness left in it, so long the offered mercy is not
needed; euthanasia is a relief from unendurable agony,
not an enforced extinguisher of a still desired existence.
Besides, no one proposes to make it obligatory on any
body ; it is only urged that where the patient asks for
the mercy of a speedy death, instead of a protracted one,
his prayer may be granted without any danger of the pen
alties of murder or manslaughter being inflicted on the
doctors and nurses in attendance.
I will lay before
the reader a case which is within my own knowledge,—
and which can probably be supplemented by the sad
experience of almost every individual,—in v’hich the
legality of euthanasia would have been a boon equally
to the sufferer and to her family. A widow lady was
suffering from cancer in the breast, and as the case was
too far advanced for the ordinary remedy of the knife,
and as the leading London surgeons refused to risk an
operation which might hasten, but could not retard,
death, she resolved, for the sake of her orphan children,
to allow a medical practitioner to perform a terrible
operation, whereby he hoped to prolong her life for
some years. Its details are too painful to enter into
unnecessarily; it will suffice to say that it was per
formed by means of quick-lime, and that the use of
chloroform was impossible. When the operation, which
extended over days, was but half over, the sufferer’s
strength gave way, and the doctor was compelled to
acknowledge that even a prolongation of life was im
possible, and that to complete the operation could only
hasten death. So the patient had to linger on in almost
unimaginable torture, knowing that the pain could only
end in death, seeing her relatives worn out by watching,
�Euthanasia.
7
•and agonised at the sight of her sufferings, and yet
compelled to live on from hour to hour, till at last the
anguish culminated in death. Is it possible for any
one to believe that it would have been wrong to have
hastened the inevitable end, and thus to have shortened
the agony of the sufferer herself, and to have also spared
Sier nurses months of subsequent ill-health. It is in
»uch cases as this that euthanasia would be useful. It
s, however, probable that all will agree that the benefit
conferred by the legalisation of euthanasia would, in
nany instances, be very great; but many feel that the
objections to it, on moral grounds, are so weighty, that
10 physical benefit could countervail the moral wrong.
These objections, so far as I can gather them, are as
bllows:—
Life is the gift of God, and is therefore sacred, and
nust only be taken back by the giver of life.
*
Euthanasia is an interference with the course of
•lature, and is therefore an act of rebellion against God.
Pain is a spiritual remedial agent inflicted by God,
.-jid should therefore be patiently endured.
Life is the gift of God, and is therefore sacred, and
.nust only be taken back by the Giver of life. This
objection is one of those high-sounding phrases which
mpose on the careless and thoughtless hearer, by catchng up a form of words which is generally accepted as
m unquestionable axiom, and by hanging thereupon
in unfair corollary. The ordinary man or woman, on
tearing this assertion, would probably answer—“ Life
tacred ? Yes, of course ; on the sacredness of life
lepends the safety of society ; anything which tampers
vith this principle must be both wrong and dangerous.”
Ind yet, such is the inconsistency of the thoughtless,
hat, five minutes afterwards, the same person will glow
.vith passionate admiration at some noble deed, in
* We of course here have no concern with theological questions
nuching the existence or non-existence of Deity, and express no
pinion about them.
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Euthanasia.
which the sacredness of life has been cast to the winds
at the call of honour or of humanity, or will utter words
of indignant contempt at the baseness which counted
life more sacred than duty or principle. That life is
sacred is an undeniable proposition; every natural gift
is sacred, i.e. is valuable, and is not to be lightly
destroyed ; life, as summing up all natural gifts, and
as containing within itself all possibilities of usefulness
and happiness, is the most sacred physical possession
which we own. But it is not the most sacred thing on
earth. Martyrs slain for the sake of principles which
they could not truthfully deny ; patriots who have
died for their country; heroes who have sacrificed
themselves for others’ good ;—the very flower and glory
of humanity rise up in a vast crowd to protest that
conscience, honour, love, self-devotion, are more precious
to the race than is the life of the individual. Life is
sacred, but it may be laid down in a noble cause ; life
is sacred, but it must bend before the holier sacredness
of principle ; life which, though sacred, can be de
stroyed, is as nothing before the indestructible ideals
which claim from every noble soul the sacrifice of per
sonal happiness, of personal greatness, yea, of personal
*
life
It will be conceded, then, on all hands, that the
proposition that life is sacred must be accepted with
many limitations : the proposition, in fact, amounts
only to this, that life must not be voluntarily laid
down without grave and sufficient cause. What we
have to consider, is, whether there are present, in any
proposed euthanasia, such conditions as overbear con
siderations for the acknowledged sanctity of life. W e
* The word “ life ” is here used in the sense of “ personal exist
ence in this world.” It is, of course, not intended to be asserted
that life is really destructible, but only that personal existence, or
identity, may be destroyed. And further, no opinion is given on
the possibility of life otherwhere than on this globe; nothing is
spoken of except life on earth, under the conditions of human
existence.
�Euthanasia.
9
contend that in the cases in which it is proposed that
death should be hastened, these conditions do exist.
"We will not touch here on the question of the
endurance of pain as a duty, for we will examine that
further on. But is it a matter of no importance, that
a sufferer should condemn his attendants to a prolonged
drain on their health and strength, in order to cling to
a life which is useless to others, and a burden to him
self ? The nurse who tends, perhaps for weeks, a bed
of agony, for which there is no cure but death whose
senses are strained by intense watchfulness whose
nerves are racked by witnessing torture which she is
powerless to alleviate—is, by her self-devotion, sowing
in her own constitution the seeds of ill-health that is
to say, she is deliberately shortening her own life. We
have seen that we have a right to shorten life in obedi
ence to a call of duty, and it will at once be said that
the nurse is obeying such a call. But has the nurse a
right to sacrifice her own life—and an injury to health
is a sacrifice of life—for an obviously unequivalent
advantage? We are apt to forget, because the injury
is partially veiled to us, that we touch the sacredness
of life whenever we touch health : every case of over
work, of over-strain, of over-exertion, is, so to speak, a
modified case of euthanasia. To poison the spring of
life is as real a tampering with the sacredness of life
as it is to check its course. The nurse is really com
mitting a slow euthanasia. Either the patient or the
nurse must commit an heroic suicide for the sake of
the other—which shall it be ? Shall the life be sacri
ficed, which is torture to its possessor, useless to
society, and whose bounds are already clearly marked ?
or shall a strong and healthy life, with all its future
possibilities, be undermined and sacrificed in addition
to that which is already doomed 1 But, granting that
the sublime generosity of the nurse stays not to balance
the gain with the loss, but counts herself as nothing in
the face of a human need, then surely it is time to urge
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Euthanasia.
that to permit this self-sacrifice is an error, and that to
accept it is a crime. If it be granted that the throwing
away of life for a manifestly unequivalent gain is wrong,
then we ought not to blind ourselves to the fact, that
to sacrifice a healthy life in order to lengthen by a few
short weeks a doomed life, is a grave moral error, how
ever much it may be redeemed in the individual by the
glory of a noble self-devotion. Allowing to the full the
honour due to the heroism of the nurse, what are we
to say to the patient who accepts the sacrifice 1 What
are we to think of the morality of a human being, who,
in order to preserve the miserable remnant of life left
to him, allows another to shorten life 1 If we honour
the man who sacrifices himself to defend his family, or
risks his own life to save theirs, we must surely blame
him who, on the contrary, sacrifices those he ought to
value most, in order to prolong his own now useless
existence. The measure of our admiration for the one,
must be the measure of our pity for the weakness and
selfishness of the other. If it be true that the man who
dies for his dear ones on the battlefield is a hero, he
who voluntarily dies for them on his bed of sickness is
a hero no less brave. But it is urged that life is the
gift of God, and must only he taken hack hy the Giver
of life. I suppose that in any sense in which it can be
supposed true that life is the gift of God, it can only be
taken back by the giver—that is to say, that just as
life is produced in accordance with certain laws, so it
can only be destroyed in accordance with certain other
laws. Life is not the direct gift of a superior power :
it is the gift of man to man and animal to animal, pro
duced by the voluntary agent, and not by God, under
physical conditions, on the fulfilment of which alone
the production of life depends. The physical condi
tions must be observed if we desire to produce life, and
so must they be if we desire to destroy life. In both
cases man is the voluntary agent, in both law is the
means of his action. If life-giving is God’s doing, then
�Euthanasia.
11
life-destroying is his doing too. But this is not what
is intended by the proposers of this aphorism. If they
will pardon me for translating their somewhat vague
proposition into more precise language, they say that
they find themselves in possession of a certain thing
called life, which must have come from somewhereand
as in popular language the unknown is always the
divine, it must have come from God : therefore this life
must only be taken from them by a cause that also
proceeds from somewhere—i.e., from an unknown cause
—i.e., from the divine will. Chloroform comes from a
visible agent, from the doctor or nurse, or at least from
a bottle, wich can be taken up or left alone at our own
h
*
choice. If we swallow this, the cause of death is known,
and is evidently not divine ; but if we go into a house
where scarlet fever is raging, although we are in that
case voluntarily running the chance of taking poison
quite as truly as if we swallow a dose of chloroform,
yet if we die from the infection, we can imagine the
illness to be sent from God. Wherever we think the
element of chance comes in, there we are able to imagine
that God rules directly. We quite overlook the fact
that there is no such thing as chance. There is only
our ignorance of law, not a break in natural order. If
our constitution be susceptible of the particular poison
to which we expose it, we take the disease. If we
knew the laws of infection as accurately as we know
the laws affecting chloroform, we should be able to fore
see with like certainty the inevitable consequence ; and
our ignorance does not make the action of either set of
laws less unchangeable or more divine. But in the
“ happy-go-lucky ” style of thought peculiar to ignor
ance, the Christian disregards the fact that infection is
ruled by definite laws, and believes that health and
sickness are the direct expressions of the will of his
God, and not the invariable consequents of obscure but
probably discoverable antecedents ; so he boldly goes
into the back slums of London to nurse a family
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Euthanasia.
stricken down with fever, and knowingly and deliber
ately runs “ the chance ” of infection—i.e., knowingly
and deliberately runs the chance of taking poison, or
rather of having poison poured into his frame. This
he does, trusting that the nobility of his motive will
make the act right in God’s sight. Is it more noble
to relieve the sufferings of strangers, than to relieve the
sufferings of his family ? or is it more heroic to die of
voluntarily-contracted fever, than of voluntarily-taken
chloroform 1
, The argument that life must only be taken back by the
life-giver, would, if thoroughly carried out, entirely pre
vent all dangerous operations. In the treatment of
some diseases there are operations that will either kill
or cure: the disease must certainly be fatal if left alone;
while the proposed operation may save life, it may
equally destroy it, and thus may take life some time be
fore the giver of life wanted to take it back. Evidently,
then, such operations should not be performed, since
there is risked so grave an interference with the desires
of the life-giver.
Again, doctors act very wrongly
when they allow certain soothing medicines to be taken
when all hope is gone, which they refuse so long as a
chance of recovery remains : what right have they to
compel the life-giver to follow out his apparent inten
tions ? In some cases of painful disease, it is now
usual to produce partial or total unconsciousness by the
injection of morphia, or by the use of some other
anaesthetic. Thus, I have known a patient subjected
to this kind of treatment, when dying from a tumour
in the sesophagus; he was consequently, for some
weeks before his death, kept in a state of almost com
plete unconsciousness, for if he were allowed to become
conscious, his agony was so unendurable as to drive
him wild. He was thus, although breathing, practi
cally dead for weeks before his death. We cannot but
wonder, in view of such a case as his, what it is that
people mean when they talk of “ life.” Life includes,
�Euthanasia.
13
surely, not only the involuntary animal functions, such
as the movements of heart and lungs; but conscious
ness, thought, feeling, emotion. Of the various con
stituents of human life, surely those are not the most
“ sacred ” which we share with the brute, however
necessary these may be as the basis on which the rest
are built. It is thought, then, that we may rightfully
destroy all that constitutes the beauty and nobility of
human life, we may kill thought, slay consciousness,
deaden emotion, stop feeling, we may do all this, and
leave lying on the bed before us a breathing figure,
from which we have taken all the nobler possibilities
of life; but we may not touch the purely animal exist
ence ; we may rightly check the action of the nerves
and the brain, but we must not dare to outrage the
Deity by checking the action of the heart and the
lungs.
We ask, then, for the legalisation of euthanasia,
because it is in accordance with the highest morality
yet known, that which teaches the duty of self-sacrifice
for the greater good of others, because it is sanctioned
in principle by every service performed at personal
danger and injury, and because it is already partially
practised by modern improvements in medical science.
Euthanasia is an interference with the course of
nature, and is therefore an act of rebellion against
God. In considering this objection, we are placed in
difficulty by not being told what sense our opponents
attach to the word “ nature; ” and we are obliged once
more to ask pardon for forcing these vague and highflown arguments into a humiliating precision of mean
ing. Nature, in the widest sense of the word, includes
all natural laws; and in this sense it is of course
impossible to interfere with nature at all. We live,
and move, and have our being in nature ; and we can
no more get outside it, than we can get outside every
thing. With this nature we cannot interfere : we can
study its laws, and learn how to balance one law
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Euthanasia.
against another, so as to modify results; but this can
only be done by and through nature itself. The
“ interference with the course of nature ” which is in
tended in the above objection does not of course mean
this, impossible proceeding ; and it can then only mean
an interference with things which would proceed in
one course without human agency meddling with them,
but which are susceptible of being turned into another
course by human agency. If interference with nature’s
course be a rebellion against God, we are rebelling against
God every day of our lives. Every achievement of civili
sation is an interference with nature. Every artificial
comfort we enjoy is an improvement on nature.
“Everybody professes to approve and admire many
great triumphs of art over nature: the junction by
bridges of shores which nature had made separate, the
draining of nature’s marshes, the excavation of her
wells, the dragging to light of what she has buried at
immense depths in the earth, the turning away of her
thunderbolts by lightning-rods, of her inundations by
embankments, of her ocean by breakwaters. But to
commend these and similar feats, is to acknowledge
that the ways of nature are to be conquered, not
obeyed; that her powers are often towards man in
the position of enemies, from whom he must wrest, by
force and ingenuity, what little he can for his own use,
and deserves to be applauded when that little is rather
more than might be expected from his physical weak
ness in comparison to those gigantic powers. All
praise, of civilisation, or art, or contrivance, is so much
dispraise of nature; an admission of imperfection,
which it is man’s business, and merit, to be always
endeavouring to correct or mitigate.”* It is difficult
to understand how anyone, contemplating the course of
nature, can regard it as the expression of a divine will,
which man has no right to improve upon. Natural
law is essentially unreasoning and unmoral: gigantic
* “Essay on Nature,” by John Stuart Mill.
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forces clash, around us on every side, unintelligent, and
unvarying in their action. With equal impassiveness
these blind forces produce vast benefits and work vast
catastrophes. The benefits are ours, if we are able to
grasp them; but nature troubles itself not whether we
take them or leave them alone. The catastrophes may
rightly be averted, if we can avert them; but nature
stays not its grinding wheel for our moans. Even
allowing that a Supreme Intelligence gave these forces
their being, it is manifest that he never intended man
to be their plaything, or to do them homage; for man
is dowered with reason to calculate, and with genius to
foresee; and into man’s hands is given the realm of
nature (in this world) to cultivate, td govern, to im
prove. So long as men believed that a god wielded
the thunderbolt, so long would a lightning-conductor
be an outrage on Jove; so long as a god guided each
force of nature, so long would it be impiety to resist,
or to endeavour to regulate, the divine volitions. Only
as experience gradually proved that no evil consequences
followed upon each amendment of nature, were natural
forces withdrawn, one by one, from the sphere of the
unknown and the divine. Now, even pain, that used
to be God’s scourge, is soothed by chloroform, and
death alone is left for nature to inflict, with what
lingering agony it may. But why should death, any
more than other ills, be left entirely to the clumsy,
unassisted processes of nature ?-—why, after struggling
against nature all our lives, should we let it reign
unopposed in death ? There are some natural evils
that we cannot avert. Pain and death are of these;
but we can dull pain by dulling feeling, and we can ease
death by shortening its pangs. Nature kills by slow
and protracted torture; we can defy it by choosing a
rapid and painless end. It is only the remains of the
old superstition that makes men think that to take life
is the special prerogative of the gods. With marvel
lous inconsistency, however, the opponents of euthan
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Euthanasia.
asia do not scruple to “interfere with the course of
nature ” on the one hand, while they forbid us to inter
fere on the other. It is right to prolong pain by art,
although it is wrong to shorten it. When a person is
smitten down with some fearful and incurable disease,
they do not leave him to nature; on the contrary, they
check and thwart nature in every possible way; they
cherish the life that nature has blasted; they nourish
the strength that nature is undermining; they delay
each process of decay which nature sows in the dis
ordered frame; they contest every inch of ground with
nature to preserve life; and then, when life means
torture, and we ask permission to step in and quench
it, they cry out that we are interfering with nature.
If they would leave nature to itself, the disease would
generally kill with tolerable rapidity; but they will not
do this. They will only admit the force of their own
argument when it tells on the side of what they choose
to consider right. “Against nature ” is the cry with
which many a modern improvement has been howled
at; and it will continue to be raised, until it is gener
ally acknowledged that happiness, and not nature, is
the true guide to morality, and until man recognises
that nature is to be harnessed to his car of triumph,
and to bend its mighty forces to fulfil the human will.
Pam is a spiritual remedial agent, inflicted hy God,
and should therefore he patiently endured. Does any
one, except a self-torturing ascetic, endure any pain
which he can get rid of? This might be deemed a
sufficient answer to this objection, for common sense
always bids us avoid all possible pain, and daily expe
rience tells us that people invariably evade pain, when
ever such evasion is possible. The objection ought to
run : “ pain is a spiritual remedial agent, inflicted by
God, which is to be got rid of as soon as possible, but
ought to be patiently endured when unavoidable.”
Pain as pain has no recommendations, spiritual or
otherwise, nor is there the smallest merit in a voluntary
�Euthanasia.
J7
and needless submission to pain. As to its remedial
and educational advantages, it as often as not sours the
temper and hardens the heart; if a person endures
great physical or mental pain with unruffled patience,
and comes out of it with uninjured tenderness and
sweetness, we may rest assured that wre have come
across a rare and beautiful nature of exceptional strength.
As a general rule, pain, especially if it > be mental,
hardens and roughens the character. The use of anaes
thetics is utterly indefensible, if physical pain is to be
regarded as a special tool whereby God cultivates the
human soul. If God is directly acting on the sufferer s
body, and is educating his soul by racking his nerves,
by what right does the doctor step between with his
impious anaesthetic, and by reducing the patient to un
consciousness, deprive God of his pupil, and man of
his lesson ? If pain be a sacred ark, over which hovers
the divine glory, surely it must be a sinful act to touch
the holy thing. We may be inflicting incalculable
spiritual damage by frustrating the divine plan of edu
cation, which was corporeal agony as a spiritual agent.
Therefore, if this argument be good for anything at all,
we must from henceforth eschew all anaesthetics, we
must take no steps to alleviate human agony, we must
not venture to interfere with this beneficent agent, but
must leave nature to torture us as it will. But we
utterly deny that the unnecessary endurance of pain is
even a merit, much less a duty; on the contrary, we
believe that it is our duty to war against pain as much
as possible, to alleviate it wherever we cannot stop it
entirely ; and, where continuous and frightful agony
can only end in death, then to give to the sufferer the
relief he craves for, in the sleep which is mercy. “ It
is a mercy God has taken him,” is an expression often
heard when the racked frame at last lies quiet, and the
writhed features settle slowly into the peaceful smile of
the dead. That mercy we plead that man should be
allowed to give to man, when human skill and human
�18
Euthanasia.
tenderness have done their best, and when they have
left, within their reach, no greater boon than a speedy
and painless death.
We are not aware that any objection, which may not
be classed under one or other of these three heads, has
been levelled against the proposition that euthanasia
should be legalised. It has, indeed, been suggested
that to put into a doctor’s hands this “ power of life
and death,” would be to offer a dangerous temptation
to those who have any special object to gain by putting
a troublesome person quietly out of the way. But this
objection overlooks the fact that the patient himself must
ask for the draught, that stringent precautions can be taken
to render euthanasia impossible except at the patient’s
earnestly, or even repeatedly, expressed wish, that any
doctor or attendant, neglecting to take these precautions,
w’ould then, as now, be liable to all the penalties for
murder or for manslaughter; and that an ordinary
doctor would no more be ready to face these penalties
then, than he is now, although he undoubtedly has
now the power of putting the patient to death with
but little chance of discovery. Euthanasia would not
render murder less dangerous than it is at present, since
no one asks that a nurse may be empowered to give a
patient a dose which would ensure death, or that she
might be allowed to shield herself from punishment on
the plea that the patient desired it. If our opponents
would take the trouble to find out what we do ask,
before they condemn our propositions, it would greatly
simplify public discussion, not alone in this case, but
in many proposed reforms.
It may be well, also, to point out the wide line of
demarcation, which separated euthanasia from what is
ordinarily called suicide. Euthanasia, like suicide, is
a voluntarily chosen death, but there is a radical dif
ference between the motives which prompt the similar
act. Those who commit suicide thereby render them
�Euthanasia.
*9
selves useless to society for the future j they deprive
society of their services, and selfishly evade the duties
which ought to fall to their share ; therefore, the social
feelings rightly condemn suicide as a crime against
society. I do not say, that under no stress of circum
stances is suicide justifiable ; that is not the question ;
but I wish to point out that it is justly regarded as a
social offence. But the very motive which restrains
from suicide, prompts to euthanasia. The sufferer who
knows that he is lost to society, that he can never
again serve his fellow-men ; who knows, also, that he
is depriving society of the services of those who use
lessly exhaust themselves for him, and is further injur
ing it by undermining the health of its healthy mem
bers, feels urged by the very social instincts which
would prevent him from committing suicide while in
health, to yield a last service to society by relieving it
from a useless burden. Hence it is that Sir Ihomas
More, in the quotation with which we began this essay,
makes the social authorities of his ideal state urge
euthanasia as the duty of ,a faithful citizen, while they
yet, consistently reprobate ordinary suicide, as a Ibsemajeste, a crime against the State. The life of the
individual is, in a sense, the property of society. The
infant is nurtured, the child is educated, the man is
protected by others; and, in return for the life thus
given, developed, preserved, society has a right to
demand from its members a loyal, self-forgetting devo
tion to the common weal. To serve humanity, to raise
the race from which we spring, to dedicate every talent,
every power, every energy, to the improvement of, and
to the increase of happiness in, society, this is the duty
of each individual man and woman. And, when we
have given all we can, when strength is sinking, and life
is failing, when pain racks our bodies, and the worse
agony of seeing our dear ones suffer in our anguish,
tortures our enfeebled minds, when the only service
�20
Euthanasia.
we can render man is to relieve him of a useless and
injurious burden, then we ask that we may be per
mitted to die voluntarily and painlessly, and so to
crown a noble life with the laurel-wreath of a selfsacrificing death.
TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Pamphlet
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Title
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Euthanasia
Creator
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Besant, Annie Wood
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 20 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Author not named on pamphlet but known to be Annie Besant. Printed by Turnbull and Spears, Edinburgh. Also published with the added subtitle: 'A pamphlet advocating the legalization of the administration of poison by a medical attendant to persons suffering from incurable and painful diseases'.
Publisher
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Thomas Scott
Date
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[1875]
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G5502
Subject
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Euthenasia
Ethics
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English
Annie Besant
Conway Tracts
Death
Ethics
Euthanasia
Health
-
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528aa36fda883e95aeea0f695d0cd929
PDF Text
Text
EUTHANASIA.
AN ABSTRACT OF THE ARGUMENTS FOR AND
AGAINST IT.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
NO. 11, THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD,
UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E.
Price Threepence.
�0
fc
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�EUTHANASIA.
T may be well to explain that the publication of this
pamphlet has arisen under the following circum
stances. In the London correspondence of the Western
Morning News of November 13, 1874, there appeared
the following paragraph :—“ It is a serious question
which ought to be faced, if in cases where there is
mortal disease a patient should not be at liberty to
demand his order of release from the burden of the
flesh at the hands of authorised functionaries of the
State. The relief would accrue not only to the
sufferer, but also to those weary and agonised watchers
who have to wait round the bed of pain, and feel that
they are helpless. If we may put a murderer out of
existence for the benefit of society, why may we not
put a saint out of existence for his own unspeakable
benefit—involving, as it would, the exchange of pro
longed torture for the joys of Paradise ? In both cases
life would be taken by properly constituted officials;
but in the one case death would be an execution, in
the other a euthanasia.”
This paragraph excited a good deal of comment,
chiefly of an unfavourable character. It has been
thought desirable to treat the subject somewhat more
fully, and the following pages will contain an abstract
of the arguments used against “ Euthanasia,” and the
replies to them.
Two things, however, should be premised. First,
that by the term “ Euthanasia” suicide is not intended
I
�4
Euthanasia.
second, that the writer thinks it is quite possible argu
ments may he brought forward which would be so
strong as to counterbalance those in favour of “ Eutha
nasia.” He has not met with any such arguments
hitherto, but as they may exist he wishes this
pamphlet to be considered as a contribution towards
a discussion rather than as a final and conclusive
decision.
By the term “Euthanasia” is meant a putting to
death with the full consent of the person concerned,
any one who, being in entire possession of his mental
faculties, and stricken by a mortal and painful disease,
knows that his days are numbered, and desires to avoid
the period of agony that in the ordinary course of nature
lies between him and dissolution. . Under certain cir
cumstances even suicide is deemed lawful. For instance,
when a woman has taken her life rather than lose her
honour, as happened at Cawnpore. Other cases are
conceivable. For example, if a criminal (much more a
righteous man) were about to be put to a horrible
death, such as used to be inflicted in the middle ages,
such as is still inflicted by savage tribes, no one would
blame him if he anticipated his end by a few minutes,
and escaped intolerable torture by a dose of laudanum.
Or take another case—one that too often happens—in
which a shipwrecked crew without food are compelled,
in order that they may not all perish, to cast lots as to
which of them shall die and be eaten. In such a case
no one would condemn as a murderer the man who put
the victim to death. Supposing, in order to spare his
friend that terrible office, the victim put himself to
death, should we not think that he had displayed the
very highest kind of self-sacrifice ? Should we not say
that he had laid down his life for his friends ?
This much is said, not to argue in favour of the right
of suicide, which, however admissible in some cases,
could not be sanctioned as a general proposition with
out opening the door to very grave inconvenience and
�Euthanasia,.
5
mischief, but by way of supporting the argument that
it is lawful under the conditions stated above to take
the life of another. In a word, if, under certain
conditions, a man may take his own life, a fortiori, he
may have it taken for him with his consent.
It has been urged, however, that there is no real
parallel between the cases cited. The Cawnpore case
is admitted to be doubtful and very difficult to decide.
But it is argued that a martyr certainly would not
anticipate his death, and that in the case of the ship
wrecked crew the prime object would be to save life,
not to destroy it. To this it may be replied that the
martyr was not intended. It is probable that his
testimony at the stake may be of so great service to the
truth, and therefore to mankind, that it would be worth
while for him to encounter the severer kind of death.
But if we take the case of a white man falling into the
hands of savages, and knowing that he has a death of
horrible toru^ent before him, and that he has the means
of escaping it by inflicting upon himself a painless
death, we can hardly do otherwise than admit that
he would be right to resort to such means. The other
objection is little to the point. There is no such
antagonism as it suggested. Ex hypothesi there is no
possibility of “ saving ” life. The terms of the propo
sition imply that death is certainly and indisputably at
hand, and the only question at issue is, if death shall
be accelerated in order to save the agony of dying.
This acceleration is described by an adverse critic
as the act of “ a rebel rushing unbidden into the world
of spirits.” But there is no rebellion; on the contrary,
there is entire submission. The doomed man knows
that sentence of death has been passed upon him by his
Maker, and he submits to it without murmuring. He
has received his call to another world, and he hastens
to obey it. It may, indeed, be said that he makes too
much haste; and that is the point under discussion.
But certainly too great eagerness to comply cannot be
�0
Lutbanasia.
called rebellion. There are some diseases of a very
formidable character, concerning which a surgeon will
admit that it is an equal chance if an operation will
cure or kill. The disease will slay (say) in three
months; the operation may slay in a week. No one
would say that the patient had been guilty of “ rebel
lion ” because he chose to have the operation performed,
and died under it, even though he thereby shortened
his life by eleven weeks. Why, then, when there is
no chance of a cure, should not the fatal issue be
anticipated? If it be said that, in the first case, the
object is the preservation of life, while, in the second,
it is the destruction of life, the answer is, that in the
second case the destruction is the will of God, and that
it cannot be “ rebellion ” to act in accordance with that
will. Moreover, if we admit disease to be the servant
of God’s will, if cancer or any other agonizing disease
is his minister, why should we not count opium to be ?
Here the argument is used that euthanasia is unlaw
ful, because it frustrates the purposes of God, who has
“corrective ends” in view when he sends affliction,
and who intends it as a “disciplinary process.” In
other words, pain is discipline, and therefore ought not
to be evaded. If this argument is true, it is difficult to
understand how it can be right to alleviate pain. Why
should it be unlawful to escape from the “discipline” by
one large dose of narcotic, and yet lawful to escape it by
repeated small doses ? At present, in cases of cancer,
a doctor keeps his patient during the last stages of the
disease perpetually under the influence of opiates, and
thinks himself and the sufferer fortunate if he can retain
him in a narcotized condition until the end comes.
Yet no one accuses the doctor of evading the “dis
ciplinary ” process; on the contrary, he would be
thought to fail in duty if he did not carry out this
treatment. It is difficult to see how there can be any
disciplinary process or corrective ends here for anybody,
whether the patient or the friends who watch by his
�Euthdnasia.
7
bedside. In some cases the pain is too great to yield
to opiates. Then patient and watchers alike endure
agony; and the question arises if it be lawful for a man
to sacrifice his life in the battle-field, while full oi
vigour, for the good of his country, is it not lawful for
him also to sacrifice a few weeks of wretched existence
on his death-bed for the sake of his family 1
Something has been said about the possibility of
doctors making mistakes, and giving up as hopeless
patients who have actually recovered. But there are
certain diseases in which there can be no doubt; and
it is only with regard to such, and only with regard to
those of them which are peculiarly painful, that the
question of euthanasia arises. We may be quite sure
that the patient himself will be in no hurry to die.
The tenacity with which men cling to life under the
most desperate circumstances will always tend to pre
vent any premature death of this kind. But even
supposing that the worst does happen, that a patient
is hastened out of life who might have recovered, he
has, if there be any truth in the Christianity we pro
fess, but exchanged a poor, miserable existence for one
of glory and bliss. When we lose anyone dear to us,
we say that we would not have him back again, be
cause it would be to bring him back from the joys of
Paradise to the troubles, and trials, and temptations of
earth. Bearing this in mind, it seems strange that men
should be ready to put a poor, burnt moth out of its
misery, believing, as they do, that it has no other life
in store, yet should think it wrong to put a cancereaten fellow-being out of his misery, though for him
there is reserved an exceeding and eternal weight of
glory.
Here, however, the theological idea comes in. Per
haps it is not endless happiness, but endless misery,
which is in store for him. Without discussing here
the existence of hell and eternal punishment, assuming
indeed that those ideas have an answering reality, we
�8
Euthanasia.
would ask if a man would not be much more fitted to
pass into the more immediate presence of his Judge
with the full consciousness that he was about to die,
and with every opportunity offered him of repentance
and “ making his peace with God/’ than if he were to
pass away in a state of unconsciousness, whether through
the ravages of disease or under the influence of opiates'?
A condemned criminal, unless he be wholly and irreclaimably hardened, usually shows sufficient contrition
during the days which elapse between his sentence and
execution to justify the chaplain in admitting him to
the most solemn rite of the Christian religion. Surely
there would be much more likelihood that a less
grievous offender would be able to make confession of
sin, restitution wherever possible, and in other ways
prepare himself for his future state, if he could choose
his own time for entering it.
Much of the antagonism to euthanasia arises from
the sharp distinction which is drawn between this life
and the next. There are two possible theories about
death—1st, that it is the end of all, and, 2nd, that it is
the entrance into a new life. In the first case, it can
make no difference to a man if he die three months
sooner or later. He escapes so much agony at the cost
of annihilation; but as when he is annihilated he
knows nothing, he is not conscious of any loss, if indeed
to escape three months’ agony be loss. In the other
case, which is the far more generally-accepted theory,
it is difficult to see how a few weeks’ earlier or later
entrance into another life can alter the conditions of it.
True, we know nothing of those conditions; and the
great mystery which hangs over the next world will
nearly always keep men back from entering it volun
tarily. But the hypothesis we have all along supposed
is that of a man compelled to enter at a very early date,
and to whom is left no other choice than one of days.
Another argument used against “Euthanasia” is,
that any one who has watched by the dying bed of a
�Euthanasia.
9
loved relation, must know that the one desire of the
survivors is not to hasten death, but to postpone it till
the latest moment. No doubt this is so, and the feeling would always tend to limit Euthanasia, and it is
desirable that it should be so limited, to those cases
where the sufferings are very great and agonising, and
the fatal issue beyond all doubt. So long as there is
little pain, the parents of a dying child, for instance,
will cling to the last hope of life as a shipwrecked
man will cling to the one plank which is left him in
mid-ocean. Ordinary death itself becomes a Euthan
asia when it is simply a last sigh, and then eternal
calm. But who can tell the agonies that mothers have
endured when watching over a child stricken by one
of those lingering, torturing, internal diseases which
sometimes affect children, and which are known to be
absolutely fatal ? The case of children is, however,
more difficult to determine, because it would not be
easy to obtain from the patient that consent which has
been mentioned as a necessary preliminary condition.
In the case of adults, it would clearly be an act of sel
fishness if the relatives wished to prolong the sufferer s
agonies when he had expressed his wish to end them.
Objectors to Euthanasia say broadly, that no man
has the right to take his life. To this the reply is, that
whether there be or be not a clear and definite canon
against self-slaughter, it can have no bearing upon the
case now in question. In this case, death, the act of
dying has begun ; and, the only question is, how long
the terrible ordeal shall last. If there is any force in
the objection, a criminal called upon to choose between
the gallows and roasting to death over a slow fire,
ought to chose the second because it takes longer, and
gives so many more minutes of life. Similarly, if it
could be shown that in the case of the cancer-tortured
patient already described, the administration of opiates
would shorten life even by only a single day, opiates
ought not to be administered, for, if we may spare the
�IO
Euthanasia.
patient one day of anguish, there is no reason why we
should not spare him ten days or a hundred. In any
case, there is no parallel here between the conditions we
are supposing and an ordinary suicide. The man who takes
a dose of prussic acid because he has sustained a severe
pecuniary loss, or is threatened with exposure to humi
liation and shame, is a coward, and shows that he has
no endurance or fortitude, and no courage to try and
make the best of the many years of life which per
chance might remain to him. But when sentence of
death is passed, there can be no object in prolonging
the act of dying. In a word, suicide means extin
guishing life, Euthanasia means escaping from dying.
The statement which has been made, that Euthanasia
is 11 atheistical,” is scarcely worth noticing. To say that
submission to God’s will without murmuring, and an,
at the worst, too great eagerness to obey it, are tanta
mount to denying the existence of God is a self-con
tradiction so flagrant, that it needs no further words to
expose it. “ Atheist ” is a favourite term applied by
theologians to all who differ from them. It has about
the same meaning in their mouths as the word “bloody”
has in the mouth of the London rough. It is an ex
pletive, and no more.
Finally, a few words remain to be said as to the prac
tical operation of Euthanasia. Manifestly, it would
have to be guarded from abuse by the most rigid and
jealous precautions. It must be carried out with the con
sent of the patient; that, as has been said, must be a
primary condition. Death must be administered only
by the hand, or in the presence of a public functionary,
such as the coroner; and only after a most precise and
unhesitating declaration on the part of two medical
men that death is inevitable, and that it is likely to be
attended with great suffering. Possibly, if these pre
cautions were observed, even the good people who talk
about “atheism,” might in time learn to see that death
so coming was as much the will and the act of a mer-
�Euthanasia.
11
ciful God as the long-drawn agonies of malignant
disease. At the same time, it should be clearly under
stood, as was stated at the outset, that there may be
practical objections to Euthanasia which the present
writer does not foresee, and that these pages are to be
considered rather as a contribution to, than a settlement
of, a discussion. In fact, it has dealt almost exclu
sively with the theological objections, and these the
writer believes have no real foundation.
TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Euthanasia: an abstract of the arguments for and against it
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 11 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Date of publication from KVK. Reference to correspondence in Western Morning News, November 13, 1874. Printed by Turnbull and Spears, Edinburgh.
Publisher
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Thomas Scott
Date
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[1875]
Identifier
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G5503
Creator
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[Unknown]
Subject
The topic of the resource
Euthenasia
Ethics
Rights
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Euthanasia: an abstract of the arguments for and against it), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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Text
Language
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English
Conway Tracts
Euthanasia