You can give people autonomy over the timing and manner of their death. Or you can reduce the suffering which attends some deaths, but you can’t really do both.
There's a principle among opponents of the death penalty, better 10 innocent go free than 1 innocent dies. (I think that might be from a court case, but it isn't actually derived from law?)
It doesn't seem to be logic in play by proponents of euthanasia. But I haven't looked into it too closely, maybe there's more reticence than portrayed in conservative media.
There's another irony, though, that this is a liberal issue even as liberal have been becoming less liberal in other directions (or one could say the left is becoming less liberal). Why would bodily autonomy really be presented as some fundamental right at the same time we see ie, England arresting people for social media posts?
I suppose a nuanced argument could be made to thread that needle, but it doesn't seem like it is.
I think the ideological orientation is coming from the other direction. They're so worried about people suffering unnecessarily that they're okay with one person who may not have been suffering being "put to sleep" accidentally in order that ten people not suffer. And besides that one person was quite possibly unhappy anyway...
There was a post over on theMotte a year ago (https://www.themotte.org/post/2368/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/354623?context=8#context) which drew a distinction between Canadian MAID (which he found to have basically slid down the slope into exactly what people feared) and the European programs (which apparently haven't). I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the matter.
This is something I thought of while reading the book, particularly with Switzerland. But I did some research and it's not as clear cut as it seems. The percentage of deaths in the Netherlands from MAID is nearly identical to the percentage of deaths from MAID in Canada. (Actually slightly higher). The big difference is that the Netherlands took ~30 years to get there and Canada only took 10.
I suspect some of this is catch-up. That it's easier to follow a path than to break a path. But I think some of it is the difference in positioning. Canada has integrated it into their public health system, and made it a legal right for the recipient. The Netherlands gave the right to the doctors, as in, if you think it's the best course of action we're not going to prevent you from carrying it out. You can imagine there are big differences.
The question we're left with is: If MAID continues to expand will it be more on the Canadian model or the Dutch model? The recent attempts to introduce it in the UK seemed to be neither, and kind of followed the Oregon model. Beyond that I would point out that once a class of patients has been deemed eligible, it's difficult if not impossible to claw that back.
Doctors have handled the intolerable suffering argument for decades with the "we'll give him enough morphine to make sure he doesn't hurt" euphemism.
The legalization crowd was always focused on personal autonomy, and that's not surprising, since our entire society (since Mill) deifies individual autonomy. The "prevent suffering" argument was always a red herring to drum up sympathy for what they really wanted: a universal right to die.
Maximal individual autonomy is a cultural and evolutionary dead end. A society whose only shared belief is "do as thou wilt" (even if your will is to kill yourself) can not remain cohesive.
There's a principle among opponents of the death penalty, better 10 innocent go free than 1 innocent dies. (I think that might be from a court case, but it isn't actually derived from law?)
It doesn't seem to be logic in play by proponents of euthanasia. But I haven't looked into it too closely, maybe there's more reticence than portrayed in conservative media.
There's another irony, though, that this is a liberal issue even as liberal have been becoming less liberal in other directions (or one could say the left is becoming less liberal). Why would bodily autonomy really be presented as some fundamental right at the same time we see ie, England arresting people for social media posts?
I suppose a nuanced argument could be made to thread that needle, but it doesn't seem like it is.
I think the ideological orientation is coming from the other direction. They're so worried about people suffering unnecessarily that they're okay with one person who may not have been suffering being "put to sleep" accidentally in order that ten people not suffer. And besides that one person was quite possibly unhappy anyway...
Thats a reasonable and charitable take.
There was a post over on theMotte a year ago (https://www.themotte.org/post/2368/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/354623?context=8#context) which drew a distinction between Canadian MAID (which he found to have basically slid down the slope into exactly what people feared) and the European programs (which apparently haven't). I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the matter.
This is something I thought of while reading the book, particularly with Switzerland. But I did some research and it's not as clear cut as it seems. The percentage of deaths in the Netherlands from MAID is nearly identical to the percentage of deaths from MAID in Canada. (Actually slightly higher). The big difference is that the Netherlands took ~30 years to get there and Canada only took 10.
I suspect some of this is catch-up. That it's easier to follow a path than to break a path. But I think some of it is the difference in positioning. Canada has integrated it into their public health system, and made it a legal right for the recipient. The Netherlands gave the right to the doctors, as in, if you think it's the best course of action we're not going to prevent you from carrying it out. You can imagine there are big differences.
The question we're left with is: If MAID continues to expand will it be more on the Canadian model or the Dutch model? The recent attempts to introduce it in the UK seemed to be neither, and kind of followed the Oregon model. Beyond that I would point out that once a class of patients has been deemed eligible, it's difficult if not impossible to claw that back.
Doctors have handled the intolerable suffering argument for decades with the "we'll give him enough morphine to make sure he doesn't hurt" euphemism.
The legalization crowd was always focused on personal autonomy, and that's not surprising, since our entire society (since Mill) deifies individual autonomy. The "prevent suffering" argument was always a red herring to drum up sympathy for what they really wanted: a universal right to die.
Maximal individual autonomy is a cultural and evolutionary dead end. A society whose only shared belief is "do as thou wilt" (even if your will is to kill yourself) can not remain cohesive.
It does seem to be trending in that direction.