Human Dignity and Bioethics

402 | David Gelernter
case; it’s conceivable (at least remotely) that Mrs. Schiavo actually
left instructions that her life should be ended if she were comatose,
and it’s certainly conceivable that she was comatose; and there are
many other debatable points. One thing that is not debatable is that
the public should have been part of the debate. When murder enters
the picture, the public is automatically involved. Murder is a crime
against the public. Why on earth would the public have regarded this
case as none of its business?
Perhaps because of the warped viewpoint yielded by rights-language
and rights-morality? If we speak only of rights, we have a case
in which a woman’s right to live is in question, along with her right
to human dignity, and a husband’s versus a parent’s right to speak for
someone who can’t speak for herself. Where is the public in all this?
The public’s only role is the usual vague one of ensuring (in some
unspecified way) that all rights be enforced. I am not speaking here
of laws or absolutes that are hard-wired into the ethics of rights versus
duties. I am discussing tendencies. When we speak of rights, we tend
to speak of the individuals immediately concerned on the one hand
and the vast vague public on the other.
But if we translate rights-language to duty-language, “you have
a right to life” becomes “you have a duty to safeguard life.” Instead
of “you have the right as a husband to speak for your incapacitated
wife,” we get “you have a duty to listen to a husband if his wife is
incapacitated.”
How should the Terry Schiavo case have been decided? We notice
first that “human dignity” doesn’t help. But common sense might
have. Suspected criminals must be guilty “beyond a reasonable
doubt.” Was Mrs. Schiavo wholly comatose and unresponsive, beyond
a reasonable doubt? Was it more consistent with human dignity to kill
her than to continue helping her to live, beyond a reasonable doubt?
Was the public’s duty to safeguard life overridden by other factors in
this case, beyond a reasonable doubt? These are simple questions—but
if anyone discussed them, I missed it.
There’s a more specific issue too, suggested by duty-morality versus
rights-morality. In the Judeo-Christian view, if you have a right to
live, you also have a duty to live. Except in terribly abnormal circumstances
(which are recognized in Jewish law), it is unlawful in Judaism
to take your own life or to instruct anyone else to take it. But what