Vermont has just passed a “death with dignity” law, making it the fourth state to legalize euthanasia. This is certainly welcome news, even if I am unlikely to benefit from it personally. Living as I do in Texas, I am bound to die in a most undignified manner long before euthanasia becomes legal here, even if I live to be 103. I am tempted to move to one of those states where it is legal, Vermont, Oregon, Washington, or Montana, but they are too far north for me. Why, even north Texas is too cold for me. I mean, when it gets below 71 degrees, I’m freezing! I guess it is fortunate, though, that Yankees like the cold, because we cannot all live in the South. If everyone were like me, it would be mighty crowded down here. Politically speaking, however, I have to wonder: is there something about the bitter cold that makes people open-minded and liberal, while in the sweltering heat of the Deep South, people are set in their God-fearing ways?
Needless to say, there are those who are morally opposed to euthanasia, associating it with Nazism. And it is in response to such a charge that a distinction is sometimes made between euthanasia and assisted suicide (physician aid in dying). That is, with assisted suicide, the patient gives himself the lethal dose, while with euthanasia, someone else does the job. To those who oppose euthanasia, this is a distinction without a difference, but it actually conforms to what might be called a libertarian trend. That is, many of the evils we associate with government, while still to be contended with, have shifted to the individual, where they are more acceptable. The government, however, is not always happy about this shift in power.
For example, after the bombing of the Boston Marathon, some were calling for increased government surveillance, while others were pointing out that such was unnecessary, inasmuch as the FBI soon found itself swamped with voluntarily submitted videos sent in by citizens. In fact, now that everyone has a camera, surveillance has become ubiquitous, so much so that some states have laws prohibiting individuals from filming policemen while they are beating on a suspect. Although we still have to worry about Big Brother watching us, government finds itself in fear of Little Brother watching back.
Eugenics is also something condemned by its association with Nazism. But the danger of governments practicing eugenics is now dwarfed by individuals using genetic engineering to eliminate unwanted genes from the fertilized eggs before implanting them. This industry will only grow in the future, as would-be parents, many of them quite liberal in their politics, pay private companies to help them produce a little baby Übermensch.
As noted above, though assisted suicide is more acceptable than euthanasia, owing to the role of the individual in making the final decision, yet there are still those who oppose it on moral grounds. And, as suggested above, one suspects that God is involved somehow. Christians sometimes fear atheism as opening the way to moral license. Well, maybe they have something there. It is not that the only thing that stops the atheist from running amuck is prudence, which is to say, fear of being punished by society; but once it realized that there is nothing higher than man, and, perhaps more to the point, that there is no Hell to punish the wicked, morality does begin to slip a bit. We still have our moral sense, of course, a combination of inherited social instincts, civilizing influences, and reason, but there is a certain flexibility in all this not present in those whose morals are based on the immutable will of a stern and disapproving God. Actually, a lot a people in the liberal Protestant tradition believe in a flexible God, and thus are in many ways more like the atheists of which I speak than their fundamentalist brothers. Between the Christian fundamentalist and the atheist is but a difference of degree.
The metaphysics of the soul tends to support an absolute position about life, as something sacred and inviolate. And just as this metaphysics expresses itself in opposition to abortion, in which the embryo is thought to have a soul, which means killing it is murder; so too does this metaphysics express itself in opposition to assisted suicide, for suicide is thought of as a form of murder, and thus is strictly forbidden. But there is more to it than that. Suicides are condemned by the religious not only because it is a form of murder, but also because, by his action, the suicide spits on God’s creation. It may be that in the beginning, God saw that it was good, but the suicide says it is not, and backs it up all the way. Once we have unburdened ourselves of God and the immortal soul, we realize that life is not always a blessing, but a curse. As a result, suicide, while to be deplored and prevented in most cases, is in some situations a good thing.
“They shoot horses, don’t they?” That line, in the movie with the same title, is used to justify a mercy killing. And those of us who support euthanasia laws often appeal to the fact that we all agree that for an animal that is hopelessly suffering, the only humane thing to do is put it out of its misery. But this truth, so obvious when applied to animals, is resisted when it comes to humans. Of course, one can hardly advocate treating humans as animals as a regular thing, but sometimes it is easier to see the truth as manifested in our treatment of animals, perhaps because we cannot be as rational and objective when it comes to ourselves.
In a similar manner, many animal lovers have their pets neutered, the primary purpose being to prevent reproduction. Naively, I once thought that a neutered male dog was one that had been given a vasectomy. It came as a great shock to me when I discovered that “neutered” was a euphemism for castrated. I found out about this while dating a woman with a male dog, and I expressed my dismay to her. After all, a vasectomy is a simpler surgery than castration, and probably less painful, so why subject the poor pooch to all that extra misery? Moreover, with a vasectomy, her dog could still enjoy all the pleasures of sex, whereas a canine castrato is reduced to the passionless existence of a eunuch. “He’s more content this way,” was her answer.
I gathered that by “content,” she meant her dog no longer humped on the leg of every person who came over to visit. More to the point, however, I realized that here too was a truth more easily grasped when it concerns animals than man. I would indeed be more content were I castrated, and so would any man. All the frustrations and disappointments of sex would be over. Sex may be very pleasurable, and sometimes fun, but it won’t make you happy. Oh, I know people who are happy who also have sex, but they are happy in spite of their passions, not because of them. This truth, hidden from me for so long, was now suddenly revealed merely by considering the situation regarding my girlfriend’s dog.
I started to share with her this profound revelation, but then I thought better of it. You see, this was early on in our relationship, which had yet to be consummated, as it were, and I did not want to spoil the romantic mood with a philosophical discussion. So I put the dog in the next room, and set aside the wisdom I had so recently acquired. I could always tell her about it in the morning.