The bad news keeps rolling in as the ever-predictable Ratchet Effect guides social policy. Supposedly only available in cases of .jpg)
extreme suffering, Belgium [1] saw euthanasia figures rise by 27% in the last year.
Still, one cannot deny that a worthy human trait is the reluctance to see others suffer. In Man’sSearch for Meaning [2], the late psychiatrist Victor Frankl discusses “Logotherapy”: meaning-based therapy. With the ongoing debates in Ireland and the West in general as to the benefits of euthanasia, something Frankl discusses struck me: the benefits of suffering. As a man who survived Auschwitz, his wisdom is worth considering.
Frankl cites Edith Weisskopf-Joelson’s remonstration: “…certain unhealthy trends in the present-day culture of the United States, where the incurable suffered is given very little opportunity to be proud of his suffering and to consider it ennobling rather than degrading.” Again, suffering happens. But what does it mean to the sufferer? Or to others?
This is absolutely not to advocate suffering in and of itself. But suffering exists. Therefore, the question remains – how best to view it? To be avoided to the point of ending life, or as something to learn from and to admire in others when they do the same?
I take from Frankl two things. First, that suffering, when it is unavoidable, can be highly beneficial. Indeed, he cites research by Yale University School of Medicine into the “growth experiences” of America prisoners of war held in Vietnam.
What is broader, however, is the message to society as a whole. The decision to end one’s life – albeit in this discussion, with the help of another – is not an isolated, instantaneous decision, with neither outside influence nor ramifications. Rather, it is influenced at multiple sources – and one key area is society’s attitudes towards suffering, utility, and death.
A little thought experiment: if the world consisted of people who revered the elderly beyond question, and regardless of physical ability or mental capacity, what do you think this would do to euthanasia figures? If hospitals and nursing homes welcomed the elderly and infirm as fully and unquestionably deserved of the best of care, how might this affect the rate at which people “choose” to end their lives?
In sum, we are focusing in the wrong place if we’re going to decrease this barbaric trend towards euthanasia-on-tap. It’s morally questionable if one has even the right to argue with a terminally-ill man that his life is worth living. What is a moral duty, however, is to challenge the increasing societal acceptance that value is contingent on utility; that, past the point of maximum output – be it from age or disability – Man is of decreasing value to society.
Western societies are drifting from the duty-bound, personal care of one’s elderly or infirm relatives, to depersonalised [3], entitlement-led, state-run care. As a consequence, defense of the vulnerable and infirm is undeniably weakened.
In the end, without positive perspectives about aging, weakness and suffering, such individuals are inevitably reduced to economics data points. And who fights for the comfort and dignity of those?
Frankl would argue that each of us must find our own meaning in life. But we are not islands. Society needs to give the elderly and infirm a reason to feel there is meaning in their lives, and that suffering is not something to be vigilantly avoided to the point of elimination.
ENDS