Softer Stones: Blog by Pastor Robert Fleischmann

Another argument made by advocates for the legalization of assisted suicide involves story-telling.  More precisely, they provide anecdotal arguments – little vignettes of people they know or knew or knew of, who suffered terribly and for whom assistance in dying brought or would bring about final relief.

Anecdotal arguments are incredibly powerful.  They are moving and inspire an emotional response.  Anecdotal arguments have a way of putting the intellectual and the rube on common ground.  Telling stories of a loved one creates a connection and brings the issue of assisted suicide down to a simpler and less philosophical level – virtually lacking of any objectivity.

A problem with an anecdotal argument is that it is the story of an event as seen through a single pair of eyes or through the eyes of a a group of people sharing the same emotional investment in the details.  For example, “John” will dramatically recall the great suffering his father went through as he lay dying of brain cancer in the early 1970s.  “John” will talk about of the family’s emotional roller-coaster ride as his father went through one aggressive treatment after another – each leaving him nauseous and weakened.

After his third treatment John’s graphic telling of the story has everyone sympathizing for the plight of his father.  The pain and emotional trauma has all of the listeners longing for some sort of deliverance.

Those who use anecdotal stories are often convinced by a single, subjective experience.  Based on that experience John now favors legalizing assisted suicide.  And because his listeners joined John emotionally, they also find the “logic” compelling.

Unfortunately, anecdotal stories are designed for emotional appeal and are not designed for logic.  As John tells the story of his father’s suffering he leaves out many facts that, if known, would like tell a different story.  For example, consider the follows questions that were never addressed in John’s account of his father’s suffering:

1. Was there other treatment for John’s father that would have been comparable in treating his cancer but less burdensome in its side-affects?
2. Did the family pursue another objective second-opinion from a physician on how best to treat John’s father?
3. Could any of the suffering have been because the doctor over-treated John’s father in his pursuit to not lose a patient?
4. In the 1970s doctors determined the treatment and families went along with it.  Since the middle 1970s medicine has changed and the patients are now informed of what each treatment is and what the consequences might be.  The patient now chooses the treatment.  If John’s father were alive today, facing the same brain cancer, it is very unlikely he would go through what he did in the 1970s.  That being the case, how relevant is the 40 year old anecdotal story with so much having changed in medicine and in the approach to medical treatment?
5. How many anecdotal stories are sufficient to justify forming public policy and how closely do the details of all anecdotal stories have to be to make public policy?

Granted, we are not machines.  As we approach the end of life the emotional impact is undeniable.  But emotion also clouds judgment.  Aristotle once said, “The arousing of prejudice, pity, anger, and similar emotions has nothing to do with the essential facts, but is merely a personal appeal to the man who is judging the case.”  Anecdotal arguments appeal to emotions often to the neglect of the details and facts.  The subjectivity of the anecdotal account supplants facts with emotion and prejudices the argument.

Anecdotal arguments are pitifully weak footings for public policy.  They pay no attention to the affect of any resulting policy on the public as a whole.  They fail to represent any objective standard for what is right and wrong.  Anecdotal arguments seek to win the argument without having to provide the objective evidence to make the case.

There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death. (Proverbs 14:12)

“If we didn’t have all of this technology…”

Advocates for the right to self-murder argue that technology is a big problem.  “In the old days,” they would argue, “you weren’t hooked up to all of these machines.”

The argument is misleading and illogical.  First, it is misleading because technology is one of those things most people – even advocates of self-murder – embrace wholeheartedly.  We use technology to open our garage doors, quickly microwave our meals, turn the channels our high-tech televisions, view our email and even read this blog.

In the middle 1980s former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop spoke at a national convention for Christian Life Resources.  He observed (and I paraphrase), “we praise the technology that preserves the life we like and curse the technologies that preserve the life we don’t want.”

The technology argument for assisted suicide really only uses technology as an excuse to justify terminating a life.  The intent is quite narrow and focused – get rid of lives with poor quality.  The presumed entitlement is to a quality life (regardless of what “quality” may mean).  If technology gets in the way of ridding lives with poor qualities, then it is just one more obstacle.

So, using the technology argument is just misleading.  Technology is merely the excuse to get rid of unwanted lives.

Second, it is an illogical argument.  Efforts to legalized assisted suicide rely on technology.  Advocates use technology to make their case.  They use technology to broadcast their message.  And, they appeal to technology as the means to terminate a life.  They want a medical professional, trained in the latest technology on how pills and chemicals work on the body, to use that technology to terminate life.

Allowing assistance in self-murder presents many logical challenges.  Arguing that technology is the problem is clearly misleading and illogical.  Logic would dictate that we find a way to alleviate suffering while venerating God’s gift of life – but then that brings religion into the arena – another position used by assisted suicide advocates to make their case.  I will deal with that one in a future blog.

Dr Philip Nitschke, a pioneer advocate of assisted suicide from Australia, has provided a demonstration video on how to deliver a lethal injection for assisted suicide. That is disturbing enough. This effort goes one step further in being part of an academic video series targeted to teens ages 14-18.

You can read the story by clicking here.

When Derek Humphry was asked about the strategy of going through state legislatures to legalize assisted suicide he indicated he had little expectation of success the first, second or third proposal.  Rather, the plan was to generate talk and curiosity so that the terminology and the prospect of “death with dignity” would become familiar and eventually accepted.

I would suppose demonstration videos on self-murder with assistance to 14 year old students would be a step in that direction!

There is no greater abuse of the dying and disabled than to create a mindset that ending life is the best we can do for you and the best you can do for us.  It is becoming increasingly apparent that assisted suicide is elder abuse at its worst.  To indoctrinate our youth is a hideous, albeit proven tactic to this end.

We saw the same tactic in the early 20th century eugenics movement in the United States and its grotesque manifestation during the Nazi reign in Germany in the middle of the century.  Such efforts were accomplished by creating a societal conversation on purifying the race and eliminating useless eaters.  The rhetoric may be sanitized, the techniques modernized but the results are the same.

I am unashamedly a fan of Star Trek. I followed the original series and also equally enjoyed “The Next Generation.” So it comes with some concern that the latest entry in the case for assisted suicide would come from the bridge of the Enterprise – namely Patrick Stewart (Captain Picard in “The Next Generation”).

According to Trek Today Stewart commented, “I have the strong feeling that, should the time come for me, having had no role in my birth I would like there to be a choice I might make about how I die.”

To buttress the case Stewart did what many have done – first appeal to autonomy (“I would like there to be a choice I might make”) and to then posit an anecdotal account of someone wishing to die (“His friend was ‘driven to an extreme situation of ending their life in the most ghastly way.'”)

Patrick Stewart may be a single voice among millions but in our our starry-eyed society his words catch attention. In reality, autonomy arguments and anecdotal stories remain thin ice for their lack of depth, logic, foundation and consideration for long-reaching ramifications.

As I return to this blog I will dissect the arguments for assisted suicide over a few entries as well on other comparable topics. For now I will not let the shaky views of a popular actor sway my affection for Star Trek as a rather clever, if not occasionally a corny, piece of fantasy – akin to arguments for self-murder!