Assisted suicide: Moving from correct to compassionate

With the current brouhaha over potential revisions to South Africa’s abortion laws, and in light of recent events in England and elsewhere in Europe, maybe it’s time we in South Africa revisited our national stance on another contentious issue, that of assisted suicide/euthanasia.

Certainly it is a controversial and an emotional subject. But like gay rights, abortion, the death penalty and individual privacy/state security, it is one that needs to be tackled and dealt. I imagine a lot of the resistance to this idea would come from a knee-jerk reaction to the very idea of legalising what is essentially taking another life. But a little thought would consider the “grey areas” — the notion that letting a person live in helpless suffering and pain is more humane than allowing them to choose a way out.

That for me is the issue. Who has a right to dictate that another person (assuming sound mind) cannot decide their own way out of their suffering, and if they so choose, to have it performed by qualified professionals? Of course there are easy arguments to be made for the very “greyness” of the issue mitigating against it. For example, how would we know where to draw the line regarding a necessary level of suffering? And as one wag suggested, would we not just be making it easier for overburdened/lazy relatives to have grandma “offed” when she is too much of a hassle?

There is certainly vociferous support for views both in favour and against this.

I imagine that like most issues that have been codified into law at a time when societal views were much more conservative, a national poll would find that there is a much bigger groundswell of support for a certain degree of legal leeway in euthanasia cases. It may well be that society is not yet ready or willing to allow such, but it doesn’t mean we cannot have a conversation about it.