Dealing Death to the Desperate

The Sick Woman, Jan Havicksz. Steen, c. 1663 - c. 1666

On August 31, 2020, Ronnie McNutt killed himself at the age of 33. He live-streamed his last moments on Facebook. This on its own, though tragic, is all too common. What brought this specific case to national attention was the flurry of comments left on his livestream by complete strangers who were mocking him and encouraging him to end his own life. We surely all agree that what these strangers did was evil. My claim is simple: if it is an evil for complete strangers to encourage a suicidal man to kill himself, it is a far greater evil for a medical professional in a position of trust to be paid in order to encourage and assist that suicide.

Liberalism says that “each person … has the prerogative to devise and realize their own conception of the good.” Like the siren’s song, it sounds lovely, until one gets close enough to see its horrid implications revealed. Under this extreme ideology, the people who told Ronnie McNutt to kill himself didn’t do anything wrong. In fact, it was those who discouraged him from killing himself who were really wrong. After all, each person has the right to decide “their own conception of “the good.” And Ronnie McNutt decided that what was best for him was to kill himself. Why shouldn’t we affirm his decision, as the commenters who told him to kill himself did? Who are we to judge, or tell him that he’s wrong? 

The answer is clear. We are to judge. We may not know everything about what’s good for Mr. McNutt, but we know that self-inflicted death is bad for him. Although he may believe that taking his own life is the answer, we know that this would only cause misery for those who love him and provide no solution to his problems. We can judge these things because we are human beings, with experiences of the world and the ability to think rationally. We must therefore reject the idea that everyone can invent their own conception of the good. If a person’s conception of the good is wrong, all of us have the responsibility to correct them, lest they hurt themselves and others. Those who refuse to do so, or encourage someone to continue in a path that is clearly destructive, (like the anonymous commenters who told Mr. McNutt to shoot himself), are the worst of humanity—whose fashionable obsession with “refusing to judge” is only a cover for a profound lack of care for their fellow man. 

Before I go any further, I would like to address one popular objection to my argument above. Many people say that the case of Ronnie McNutt is not analogous to cases of assisted suicide because he was mentally ill. The argument goes that we must intervene to correct those who have a mistaken view of what is good for them if they are mentally ill because mental illness clouds a person’s judgment in ways that they themselves cannot see. It is true that McNutt did in fact suffer from numerous mental illnesses. But this argument is altogether backwards. We determine whether or not someone is mentally ill by whether or not they make decisions that are bad for them, not vice versa. What if someone assured you that they wanted to kill themself, but were not mentally ill? Would you believe them? Most would not.

The most common counter-argument, however, holds that while we can intervene if someone makes a decision that is seriously bad for them, the decision to kill oneself does not always qualify as seriously bad. For instance, it seems that for those in chronic pain or those with serious and incurable diseases, life can often be a suffering so great that death may appear to be preferable.

But let us consider the following evidence for a moment- In virtually every nation, assisted suicide is first legalized for the elderly and the terminally ill. But rarely does it remain confined to those limits. In almost every case, as exemplified by the implementation of assisted suicide laws in Canada, Switzerland, and Belgium, assisted suicide gradually expands to include the curably ill, the mentally ill or sometimes even the homeless and those with financial difficulties.

It is obvious why this is the case. The standard of incurable physical illness is an arbitrary one. After all, if someone who is incurably physically ill would be better off dead - and despite the euphemisms employed by the supporters of assisted suicide, this is ultimately what they are claiming- then there are many others who would also be better off dead. Anyone who has suffered from a broken heart will tell you that it is worse than a broken leg, and likewise, anyone who has suffered from depression or any other mental illness will tell you that it is a pain far worse than any physical pain. What about the grief that comes with the loss of a family member or close friend? What about the humiliation and loneliness that come with homelessness? It is not hard to imagine that these pains can all be worse than physical pain.

Then the defender of assisted suicide is left with an impossible choice. Either he must say that human beings can do whatever they want, regardless of what is good for them, up to and including taking his own life, or he must say that broad swathes of marginalized people– the mentally ill, the grieving, the poor, the lonely, among others– live such miserable lives that they would be better off dead. In short, in a desperate attempt to avoid judging human behavior, the defender of assisted suicide makes the most ghastly judgment of all– that some people are so miserable that there is no good reason for them to continue to live.

But a human person is valuable not because of his wealth, nor his accomplishments, nor his health, nor his vitality, nor his happiness. A human person is valuable, intrinsically, by virtue of being a human person, fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 138:14), to His image and likeness (Genesis 1:27).

In every generation, there exists that constant temptation to say that certain human beings are not really valuable. Previous generations, making idols of class, sectarianism and race, have declared certain individuals of “unfavored” classes, sects and races live such miserable lives that they would be better off dead. Modern man, being so utterly obsessed with shallow pleasure and the pursuit of his every desire, falls into another error—that those who live difficult and painful lives would be better off dead. But as life is about more than these other idols of ages past, so too is life about more than pleasure. Ironically, the predicament of modern Western man shows this best—despite living a life of unfathomable pleasure and luxury, he is outclassed by those of other generations and cultures in everything that matters: interior peace, virtue, character, genuine human connection and meaning in life. But this is a topic for another piece.

It is now fashionable to suggest that our ancestors were far cruller than us. But this is not really the case. Not for two thousand years of Western history have the elderly, the ill, the desperate and the lost, been put down like dogs.

That our killing is done in hospital beds by men and women in white robes with degrees and certificates does not justify it.

Indeed, the indifference, the professionalization, the sanitization, and the utter destruction of human dignity that are inherent to assisted suicide are in many ways crueler than the raids and massacres of ages past. I pray only that history shall condemn us as we condemn them.

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