LUTHERAN THEOLOGICAL REVIEW - Brock University

COLWELL: TO BE IN PAIN, OR NOT TO BE 11
solve moral problems. The difficulty is this: for each individual living in
horribly undignified circumstances who “wants out”, there is someone
living in equally deplorable circumstances who finds life worthwhile. So
pain by itself does not produce the same evaluations in all people who
experience it. Perspective and attitude make a great deal of difference.
This may suggest that the principle of personal autonomy should be our
guide. But this principle does not adequately account for the intricacies of
the situation either. In the first instance, the person who wants to be killed
will not be the only one involved, and we have just explored how worrisome
that can be. Moreover, if VAE is legalised, terminally ill patients who do not
want to be killed will be placed under enormous economic and
psychological pressures to request death. It also is not clear that the person
experiencing debilitating pain is the best judge either of his destiny or the
destiny of society.
This, of course, is paternalism, but not uniquely so. Protecting
people against themselves is considered morally right in many other
circumstances. For instance, we do not assume that children are the
best judge of their educational experiences. Nor do we assume that
suicidal adults are the best judge of the worth of their lives. In such
instances the responsibility for making judgements is withheld or
taken from one group and given to another more mature, balanced,
and less emotionally involved group. By extension, it may be argued
that prohibiting VAE protects not just an individual but the whole
society, because changing a dominant thread of society will change
the fabric itself.
6. WILL KILLING HIM RELIEVE HIM OF HIS MISERY
Whatever one believes about post-mortem existence, this last question
is profoundly difficult to answer. It cannot be glibly answered in the
affirmative, as so many proponents of VAE seem to imply.
Broadly speaking, one of two presuppositions will underlie our thinking
about the person who died. Either he will survive beyond the point of
physical death in some conscious state, or his conscious life will be
permanently extinguished and he will be no more. If we hold the second
presupposition we cannot answer our question in the affirmative, as the
following example will show.
When a boy’s broken arm is mended he usually lives to enjoy the cure.
But if we try to mend a man’s miserable life by removing it, he is no longer
around to enjoy the help. Here the choice is not between living in pain and