A response to euthanasia initiatives

The outcome of the physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia debate will profoundly influence physicians' role in society, the kind of society we become, and the way physicians and patients relate to one another. Three forces account for the move to physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia: an abuse of scientific advancement, a new political philosophy, and the erosion of religious consensus. The relationship between patients and physicians has often been understood as a convenant with rights on patients' part and duties on physicians' part. Physicians' duties in this covenantal relationship are to act for patients' good (a positive duty) and to do no harm (a negative duty). Euthanasia and assisted suicide are morally wrong because, as the Judeo-Christian ethic teaches, human beings are creatures of God and have only stewardship, not dominion, over life. But in our pluralistic society, which seems to lack consensus on religion, on communal responsibility, and on common values, one cannot argue against mercy killing and assisted suicide on theological grounds. Our society generally agrees, however, that a discussion of values may take place in the language of moral philosophy, a language that expresses right reason.