More than a Burden: A Christian Look at Assisted Suicide (with Dr. Richard Weikart)

MUSIC Thanks for joining us this week for Family Policy Matters. Throughout all recorded history there has been evidence of tension between the unalienable preciousness of human life and the longing to escape suffering and despair. Today's topic is about the history of euthanasia and assisted suicide. Weichert is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute Center for Science and Culture and an emeritus professor of history at California State University. Dr. Richard Weichert, welcome to Family Policy Matters.

Thanks for having me on. Alright, so tell us why is a historian writing about euthanasia and assisted suicide? I actually got interested in history because of the history of ideas and specifically the way that a lot of secular ideas have been written. For the past couple centuries had eroded the Judeo-Christian worldview. And in this particular instance, I've been interested in many years tracing how the secular ideas, ideologies, especially from the Enlightenment period in the 18th century, have eroded the Judeo-Christian sanctity of life ethic, bringing us into a culture that then accepts abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, and assisted suicide. In fact, I wrote an earlier book in 2016 called Death of Humanity and the Case for Life that tracks those ideologies.

But then this one sort of looks more specifically just at the issue. We often think this devalued attitude toward human life is a new thing here in Western culture, but I think your research has found it's always been with us, huh? Well, I've tracked it back to the Greco-Roman times and I show that there was debates among the Greco-Roman philosophers and thinkers about whether suicide was permissible morally. Infanticide was very widespread in Greco-Roman society. So it's been around a long time.

And of course, I'm covering primarily Western cultures and such. But of course, with the advent of Christianity as the dominant force in making laws and such from the fourth century on in the late Roman times, infanticide, euthanasia, assisted suicide and abortion were all illegal and have been until fairly recently. So it's not new, but it was eclipsed by this notion that human life does have value because we're created in the image of God. So in light of that, then our struggle over abortion and how it should be restricted is something that has been going on for quite a while. Oh, yeah, it's been a debate. Again, even among the Greco-Roman figures, it was a debate even back then.

Christians have, of course, rejected that over the ages. But more recently, in the last couple of centuries, there's been lots of new debates erupting, especially, again, beginning the 18th century, gaining even greater intensity in the 19th and 20th centuries about the value of human life. Issues relating to suicide, assisted suicide, euthanasia. The so-called euthanasia movement itself didn't actually emerge until the late 19th century. But there was always debates about suicide and other issues relating to the value of human life before that time. Sometimes we listen to our liberal friends and we might believe them when they say that if Christians were to be involved in forming public policy, especially using biblical principles to form some of our laws, that this would create problems. But from what I'm hearing from you, it's really what has saved us a lot of grief over the years.

It has. And there's even many secular thinkers. It's interesting in my book, Beth of Humanity, as well as in some follow up work I've done. It is interesting that there are many secular thinkers who will overtly reject the Judeo-Christian sanctity of life ethic and claim that human life has no meaning, purpose or value, that we're just a cosmic accident along the way.

And so there's nothing really to give us any meaning or purpose or value. But then, on the other hand, if you look at their political stances and the way that they treat humanity, very often they know better. They know that human life really does have value. One of the examples that I track, I don't track him in my newest book here, A Natural Death, but in my book, Death of Humanity, I talk about Bertrand Russell, who is a famous 20th century philosopher. And he said overtly that there is no purpose to human life. There's no value in human life and existence and such. But on the other hand, he was one of the leading figures in the anti-nuclear weapons movement in the middle of 20th century because he realized that human life had value and that we shouldn't be blowing each other up. If we watch movies, and I love movies, but many of them you'll see euthanasia, assisted suicide portrayed in such a positive light.

And I think sometimes we'll think, oh, yeah, you know, I see that side of it. How should we as Christians who believe in the value of life for every individual go about approaching this thought of suffering, especially some suffering that might end our lives? We, of course, need to realize that suffering is a bad thing and it's an enemy just as death is an enemy. But killing yourself is actually worse than suffering, in my view, for one thing. You know, one of the key arguments that many secular people make for assisted suicide, in fact, philosophers consider this the strongest argument for assisted suicide in euthanasia is the autonomy argument. But the autonomy argument kind of falls apart when you look at the fact that the person who is committing assisted suicide, especially if they don't believe in an afterlife, which many of them don't, if they don't believe in an afterlife, their autonomy has ended when they commit suicide. So you're saying it's a compassionate thing to do that, but then you're ending their life, you're ending their autonomy. Let me give a quick vignette that sort of illustrates this point. There was a woman named Jeanette Hall in Oregon and Oregon has assisted suicide legalized.

They've had the longer than any other state in the U.S. since the mid 1990s. She had rectal cancer and she didn't want to go through chemotherapy because she was fearful of the effects of it, losing her hair and other kinds of things. So she asked her physician for assisted suicide instead of chemotherapy. Her physician didn't believe in assisted suicide. So instead of offering her assisted suicide, he began talking with her about her family and she he brought her around to the point where she recognized that she really did have a reason to live.

Five years later, she encountered this doctor again. And here's what she said to him. She said, you saved my life. If I'd gone to a doctor that believed in assisted suicide, I would not be here.

I'd be dead. And so he's actually salvaged her autonomy. He kept her alive so that she can continue exercising her autonomy rather than putting her to death. And so many people say, oh, the compassionate thing, you know, help her to die if that's what she wants to do. But in fact, in this case, it was very obvious that the compassionate thing was to do something different. And she recognized it later as well.

So, you know, we don't know the future of things and so we don't know how things are going to turn out in different ways in the future. And so in my view, compassion is to suffer with, in fact, the word compassion literally means to suffer with someone. COM means with, passion means suffering. So compassion is to suffer with someone. It doesn't mean to kill them, to get them out of your way. And in many cases, people who end up committing assisted suicide, if you look at Oregon, where they've actually done surveys of why people get assisted suicide, very often it's not because of physical suffering.

That's where it gets sold to us as. But in less than one third of the cases, and by the way, they could choose multiple factors. So pain was not even a significant factor. Less than one third listed pain or even fear of pain as a factor in why they took assisted suicide. Much more prevalent was the idea that they felt like a burden to society and to their friends and family and such. And so we need to help bear these people's burdens.

That's what compassion is, bearing these people's burdens with them rather than trying to get them out of the way. You're arguing from some points that really aren't biblical. I mean, they just are kind of common sense. I mean, can we appeal to people whether they are believers or not, just based on some of these arguments?

Well, yes, I think we can. And my arguments about autonomy and some of the arguments that I make in my book, the last two chapters in my book are on the slippery slope argument and on the autonomy argument. The slippery slope argument is the strongest argument against euthanasia and assisted suicide. The autonomy argument is the strongest argument for euthanasia and assisted suicide. That's what philosophers themselves claim. So I make those arguments about that in relation to ways that don't necessarily have to rely upon believing in Christianity.

I myself am a Christian, but the arguments I'm making are not necessarily Christian per se. And what's interesting is you look at where assisted suicide in euthanasia has been legalized and where it hasn't. It is true that the states who've legalized it tend toward the progressive left. But there's a lot of progressive left and left wing states that have not legalized assisted suicide as well.

New York, Massachusetts, Delaware, the Democratic governor of Delaware just vetoed a bill that barely passed the Delaware legislature for assisted suicide. So it's not just a partisan issue. It's not just a Christian issue. I think many people have an intuition that human life has value, even if they don't know why it has value.

I think people understand that it does. And also we can appeal to equality as well, because the assisted suicide laws assume that there is no human equality because there's only certain people that are allowed this. It's not really autonomy because they're only saying you have to have these criteria and physicians have to determine whether you are qualified for this or not.

You don't get to decide it yourself. Talk about the eugenics movement of the last century. How important was that in changing how people might think about assisted suicide in euthanasia?

And as much as we might find that to be repugnant, why does it seem like we are still going in that direction? Yeah, much of my book is on a history of the euthanasia movement. And so the eugenics movement did play a very key role in helping to start the euthanasia movement. Eugenics is the idea that we need to improve human heredity, usually by controlling human reproduction one way or another. Now, it doesn't have to be by killing people, but actually in the late 19th and early 20th century, people on the more radical wing of the eugenics movement did propose killing people with disabilities, sometimes infanticide, sometimes killing even adults with disabilities. And of course, the Nazis were going to take over that idea, both eugenics and then the more radicalized euthanasia program to carry out that in practice. So eugenics was a very important part. And one of the interesting things about the way that eugenics played into the early phase of the euthanasia movement is that eugenics uses of euthanasia, of course, is usually involuntary euthanasia. That is, it's not asking the person if you want to die.

It's simply saying that you have a disability of some sort that we think makes you a burden on society or something like that. And thus, we're going to kill you. And so involuntary euthanasia was part of the euthanasia movement of the very beginnings. And although in many cases it has taken a backseat to voluntary euthanasia, that is getting the will of the person to either commit suicide or get euthanized, still involuntary euthanasia has been a very important part from the beginning.

And it's starting to reemerge, too, in certain ways, in certain contexts as well. So it sort of forms the more radical wing of the euthanasia movement today. But there still are some who are pressing for involuntary euthanasia today as well.

Talk to Christians, or not, people who might just be older, who might feel the way that you described, that they're not necessarily in a lot of pain, they don't fear pain, but they do fear the idea of losing control, being a burden to their children. Talk a little bit more about how either they can think about the end of life issues or prepare themselves, their estate, that kind of thing, so that they don't have to feel like such a burden. You know, I think we need to understand that every person on this globe is interconnected one way or another with other people, family members, members of your community, people you work with, people in your church or other organizations you belong to and such. And so we all have these social connections. And there's always people who are helping others to do things and always people who are being helped by others.

That is always taking place. Right now, for instance, in my own personal life, I am the primary caregiver for my 91-year-old mother-in-law who has dementia. And some people may look at her life and think, well, what value does it have? She can't remember her own children's names. She can't remember that she has children or she can't remember her husband who passed away 12 years ago. You know, but I take care of her and I can see times when there are glimmers.

I mean, I take her outside, for example, on walk just about every day and we look at the flowers and she just lights up, you know, when she sees the flowers and then she has this aesthetic sense still in her. So even though there's a lot of things in her brain that have gone wrong and that are not functioning properly and that make her what some people would see as a burden, and sometimes it's difficult. I mean, you know, my wife and I can't do a lot of the things we would like to do together. We can't go out traveling and doing things like that because we have to have someone stay home with her all the time.

And then my wife and I can't even go and take a walk together a lot of times because one of us has to be at home with her. So there are sacrifices that have to be made. But you know what? Jesus, when he said love your neighbor as yourself, that word love does imply sacrifice. It implies giving up your own desires, your own ways for the sake of other people. So I don't see her as being a burden. I see her as being a blessing. And my caring for her, yes, does cause sacrifices. But that's what life is about. Life is about loving other people and caring for them and being compassionate toward them.

Even if they do have these kinds of troubles. Your book sounds fascinating. And I think especially for people that love history, and I know a lot of our listeners do, tell us where we can follow your good work and of course, learn more about your new book, Unnatural Death, Medicines Descent from Healing to Killing.

The book itself is available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble and just about every major bookseller. If you want to go to find out more material of my lectures and other things that I've done in the past, including things about the death of humanity, which is on a similar kind of theme, you could go to YouTube and I've got some lectures there that you could look at as well. OK. Dr. Richard Weikart, thank you so much for your good work and for being with us today on Family Policy Matters. Thank you for listening to Family Policy Matters.

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