Legalizing Euthanasia? But Why?!

Even if deep changes in society have created a growing demand for the legalization of euthanasia - that doesn't make it right, Margaret Somerville says in her Ottawa Citizen column:

Not one of the bottom-line conditions usually linked with calls for legalizing euthanasia -- that a person is terminally ill, wants to die and we can kill them -- is new. These factors have been part of the human condition for as long as humans have existed. And our capacity to relieve pain and suffering has improved remarkably. So, is some other cause the main one?

I suggest it's profound changes in our post-modern, secular, western, democratic societies, and their interactive and cumulative effects. To make wise decisions about whether or not to legalize euthanasia, we need to identify and understand these changes.

Individualism: "Intense individualism" (sometimes called "selfish individualism"), which needs to be distinguished from "healthy individualism," dominates our society. This entails giving pre-eminence to rights of personal autonomy and self-determination, which favour acceptance of euthanasia.
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Materialism and consumerism: Another factor favouring euthanasia is that our society is highly materialistic and consumerist. It has lost any sense of the sacred, even just of the "secular sacred." That favours a pro-euthanasia position, because a loss of the sacred fosters the idea that worn-out people may be equated with worn-out products; both can then be seen primarily as "disposal" problems.

As one Australian politician put it: "When you are past your best-before or use-by date, you should be disposed of as quickly, cheaply and efficiently as possible." Euthanasia implements that approach.

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Individualism, selfishness, materialism - that's a dangerous mix. Craig Carter, the author of The Politics of the Cross Resurrected blog is right in his review:

Although she never uses the term, her article is a good description of the culture of death. It shows how the death wish is deeply woven into the fabric of our society, rather than being an aberation.

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Let's not forget that what the word 'euthanasia' refers to nothing but direct and intentional actions that cause another person's death. Those actions have no moral justification.