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| On assisted dying, California will be a test site for the world | On assisted dying, California will be a test site for the world |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| California is still in some respects a laboratory for the rest of the world. Really good things have come out of there, like tight emissions standards for cars, and really bad things, like techno-libertarianism. Now it has embraced assisted suicide, and in this done the rest of the world a huge favour. | California is still in some respects a laboratory for the rest of the world. Really good things have come out of there, like tight emissions standards for cars, and really bad things, like techno-libertarianism. Now it has embraced assisted suicide, and in this done the rest of the world a huge favour. |
| Although there are four other states where assisted suicide is already legal in the US, their combined populations are only a third the size of California’s. If we want to know what happens when a large, diverse state tries the policy, California is the place. Within 10 years or so we will be able to see who is right in the central dispute about these laws. Do they protect the weakest in society, or do they weaken them still further? | Although there are four other states where assisted suicide is already legal in the US, their combined populations are only a third the size of California’s. If we want to know what happens when a large, diverse state tries the policy, California is the place. Within 10 years or so we will be able to see who is right in the central dispute about these laws. Do they protect the weakest in society, or do they weaken them still further? |
| Related: California doctors can offer aid in dying, but many people won't have access | Ann Neumann | |
| This argument has nothing to do with religious dogma and it is irritating constantly to be told that it has. | This argument has nothing to do with religious dogma and it is irritating constantly to be told that it has. |
| There are of course some people who really believe – or affect to do so – that suffering is sent by God and should be endured in that spirit. There may not be many of them, but some at least write to my friend Bishop Alan Wilson, which is why I know they exist. On the other hand the bishop himself is a firm supporter of an assisted suicide law, as are a majority of self-identified Anglicans and a very large minority of regular churchgoers. The man who signed the California bill into law, Jerry Brown, is a lifelong Catholic and even trained as a Jesuit in his youth. But he signed the bill, in the face of church teaching, because he felt that this was a choice he might want himself, and so he should not withhold it from other people. | There are of course some people who really believe – or affect to do so – that suffering is sent by God and should be endured in that spirit. There may not be many of them, but some at least write to my friend Bishop Alan Wilson, which is why I know they exist. On the other hand the bishop himself is a firm supporter of an assisted suicide law, as are a majority of self-identified Anglicans and a very large minority of regular churchgoers. The man who signed the California bill into law, Jerry Brown, is a lifelong Catholic and even trained as a Jesuit in his youth. But he signed the bill, in the face of church teaching, because he felt that this was a choice he might want himself, and so he should not withhold it from other people. |
| In my experience of the Christians who object to the law, they don’t do so because they believe in God. They do so because they don’t believe much in humanity. They think, as I do, that the decision as to whether your life is worth living is one made largely on the basis of whether other people think your life is worth it. Their decision, in turn, is largely based on how much use your life is to them. There are exceptions, of course. But as broad generalisations, these views stand up. | In my experience of the Christians who object to the law, they don’t do so because they believe in God. They do so because they don’t believe much in humanity. They think, as I do, that the decision as to whether your life is worth living is one made largely on the basis of whether other people think your life is worth it. Their decision, in turn, is largely based on how much use your life is to them. There are exceptions, of course. But as broad generalisations, these views stand up. |
| Related: California to become fifth state to legalize assisted dying | |
| We know that attitudes to suicide vary with its social acceptability. That is why newspapers are very careful to report it in ways that deglamorise the act and are deliberately imprecise about the means. It’s also obvious that the opposite attitude prevails when governments or even non-state actors at war want to popularise suicide: then the talk is all of martyrs and heroism. So it seems clear enough that if suicide is presented as a brave and noble choice more and more people will take it. | We know that attitudes to suicide vary with its social acceptability. That is why newspapers are very careful to report it in ways that deglamorise the act and are deliberately imprecise about the means. It’s also obvious that the opposite attitude prevails when governments or even non-state actors at war want to popularise suicide: then the talk is all of martyrs and heroism. So it seems clear enough that if suicide is presented as a brave and noble choice more and more people will take it. |
| So what? The sceptic might reply: perhaps the people who kill themselves will be right to do so. “People talk about the horrors of war, but what weapon has man ever invented that even approaches in cruelty some of the commoner diseases,” as George Orwell wrote. Why should anyone have to suffer unnecessarily? To this, the only reply is that much of this suffering can be avoided if other people will take the trouble. The hospital that Orwell described in How the Poor Die was a place of hideous cruelty because the staff cared nothing for the patients. Most of the terrors of old age and many of the terrors of death can be relieved by money and care. Offering suicide as an alternative to suffering is an invitation to withdraw other alternatives. | So what? The sceptic might reply: perhaps the people who kill themselves will be right to do so. “People talk about the horrors of war, but what weapon has man ever invented that even approaches in cruelty some of the commoner diseases,” as George Orwell wrote. Why should anyone have to suffer unnecessarily? To this, the only reply is that much of this suffering can be avoided if other people will take the trouble. The hospital that Orwell described in How the Poor Die was a place of hideous cruelty because the staff cared nothing for the patients. Most of the terrors of old age and many of the terrors of death can be relieved by money and care. Offering suicide as an alternative to suffering is an invitation to withdraw other alternatives. |
| These arguments are not religious, unless it is religious to suppose that life has any value independent of its use – but in that case almost all humanist rhetoric is profoundly religious. But there is another and perhaps more interesting sense in which they are not religious. They make predictions, which can be tested. | These arguments are not religious, unless it is religious to suppose that life has any value independent of its use – but in that case almost all humanist rhetoric is profoundly religious. But there is another and perhaps more interesting sense in which they are not religious. They make predictions, which can be tested. |
| Related: Why I believe assisting people to die would dehumanise our society for ever | Justin Welby | |
| It’s perfectly possible that cynics like me, or the archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, are wrong about human nature, and a law that is drawn up as tightly as the Californian one promises to be will in fact be used as its proponents intend. After all, in Oregon, the people who use the law tend to be white, well-educated and prosperous: the very ones who will have the least external pressure on their decisions. Perhaps the fears of a slippery slope are misplaced. | It’s perfectly possible that cynics like me, or the archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, are wrong about human nature, and a law that is drawn up as tightly as the Californian one promises to be will in fact be used as its proponents intend. After all, in Oregon, the people who use the law tend to be white, well-educated and prosperous: the very ones who will have the least external pressure on their decisions. Perhaps the fears of a slippery slope are misplaced. |
| And that’s why Brown has done us all a service. If after 10 years the Californian law is working well: that’s to say it is not being used against the weak and miserable as a cheaper alternative to proper palliative care, there will be no reason not to extend it here. If things work out the other way, and the US healthcare system continues to work with its accustomed malignity, it will be time to ask another famous Californian question: Are you feeling lucky, punk? Are you? | And that’s why Brown has done us all a service. If after 10 years the Californian law is working well: that’s to say it is not being used against the weak and miserable as a cheaper alternative to proper palliative care, there will be no reason not to extend it here. If things work out the other way, and the US healthcare system continues to work with its accustomed malignity, it will be time to ask another famous Californian question: Are you feeling lucky, punk? Are you? |
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