May is wrong: Some lives are less worth living than others
Assisted suicide reinforcing this obvious notion is fine
Theresa May is said to have made a phenomenal speech against assisted dying in the House of Lords today. I disagree. While it was well delivered and put forward a few plausible comments against assisted dying – the best being it will be used to cover up hospital mistakes or malice – the idea assisted dying will reinforce some lives are less worth living than other lives and this is a problem is preposterous. The slightest reflection shows some lives are less worthwhile than others and nothing is wrong in acknowledging that.
May states legalising assisted suicide ‘reinforces the dangerous notion that some lives are less worth living than others’. If by dangerous she means morally wrong or ethically unsound, the statement is obviously false. The quadriplegic has a life less worth living than the normally abled. The human vegetable has a life less worth living than the conscious subject. The worthiness of our lives is constituted by the goods within them. Of course, then, the disabled, those with chronic conditions, and, mental health problems will very often have lives less worth living. Dementia stops us from connecting with others and having an integrated sense of the self, and, fibromyalgia, cystic fibrosis, and loss of limbs typically hinder us in pursuing the projects with give value to our lives; whether they be aesthetic, intellectual or athletic.
If the lives of disabled people were just as worth living as the lives of the abled, why would most of them take the opportunity to be rid of their disabilities were medical treatments or technology available? Now, saying the disabled form of life is less worth living than the abled form of life is categorially not saying the disabled form of life is not worth living. The suboptimal can still be great. However: Some chronic conditions and disabilities are so bad that they can outweigh the goods in life which remain. When severe pain is all one is living through, assisted suicide can be the rational option to take. The good life must sometimes be cut unnaturally short. Certainly, the 6,397 people who annually experience severe pain in the three months before their death should have the freedom to choose to be put down to avoid it
Thus: Passing assisted suicide reinforcing ‘some lives are less worth living than others’ is not a problem at all, because, ‘some lives are less worth living than others’ is not a dangerous or false moral idea, but an obvious fact of the world which we should all recognise. Indeed, most of us do so immediately, hence, why we make an effort to not get hit by a car and thus be bound to a wheelchair for life. It’s only political correctness which makes people say otherwise.
‘Suicide is wrong’, says May, is a false statement too. Admittedly in the vast majority of cases it is bad for the person doing it, but obviously not always. If I am being steamed to death in an unfortunate factory accident, shooting myself dead before I die in ten minutes or so with skin burnt off is not bad at all. It is good. Many people with painful conditions similarly think three months of severe pain isn’t worth whatever they might eek out of their remaining existence. It is good they kill themselves.
What is wrong, however, is interfering in an individual’s freedom for their own self-recognised good, or, your own conception of their good. A father may know his son is making a terrible mistake in sinking his life’s savings into a worthless asset, or, marrying the wrong woman, or, choosing the wrong career. This doesn’t give him the right to force his son to stop, so, analogously, neither does the state have the right to stop the imprudent person committing suicide. Definitely it has no grounds whatsoever for stopping the prudent man from ending his life.
* I think my statements hold both intrapersonally, i.e., within one person’s life, being paraplegic is less worthwhile than being able, and, interpersonally, i.e., the quadriplegic has a less worthwhile life than the abled. These statements, of course, refer to averages.
If I understand you correctly, your position seems to be that statements like "The quadriplegic has a life less worth living than the normally abled. The human vegetable has a life less worth living than the conscious subject. The worthiness of our lives is constituted by the goods within them." are obvious, and that no reasonable person could disagree.
I suspect that Theresa May, and lots of other reasonable people, would instinctively disagree; they might agree with your observation that some lives are less desirable than others in expectation, but the question of whether a life is "worth living" seems like a different question, and you don't really make a compelling case for them being the same thing.
Whilst your disagreement might simply stem from the fact that you (presumably) are a liberal and Theresa may is not (i.e. you assign different weights to the value of individual autonomy), I wonder if you are also just using the words "worth living" differently and are therefore surprised that she doesn't reach the same conclusion as you.
eke*