Why we should think carefully before legalising Assisted Dying

It's not hard to feel the case for assisted dying. Watching a loved one in pain while terminally ill is hard. The desire to relieve people of suffering is strong and the instincts behind it are often noble. However to legalise assisted dying is is a big step for us to take as a society and there are historical factors that might make us pause before making such a step, however minor it may seem at the time, and however many safeguards surround it.

Michael Burleigh's book, 'Sacred Causes: Religion and Politics from the European Dictators to Al Qaeda' (2006) is a long read, at times depressing and sometimes inspiring, but always impresssively erudite. One of the most interesting sections is a description of the early development of the Nazis' extermination policies.

In 1930s Germany, it started with the gradual acceptance of the idea (as it happens, agreed to by the 'Inner Mission' - one of the main Protestant welfare agencies), that sterilization was 'morally legitimate', even perhaps an act of duty towards future generations, a necessary means of social progress. It seemed at the time a fairly harmless move, only voluntary, with no indication that it led anywhere else. 

The next step was the decriminalization of voluntary eugenic sterilization in 1932. That again seemed a fairly uncontroversial decision. After all, no-one was forcing it on anyone, it was only for those who chose to have themselves sterilized on racial grounds, opening up the possibility that someone might choose to stop themselves bearing children in the future, and thus perpetuating their own race. 

The next stage was the possibility of sterilization at the consent of a guardian, for people whose behaviour indicated that their children could end up being 'anti-social'. Once the earlier rubicon had been crossed, this didn't seem too bad either. After all, if the principle of the benefits of sterilization had been established, then a legal guardian worried about a teenager's behaviour might choose to save society the trouble and cost of future aggravation by preventing any possibility that promiscuous delinquent youths might give birth to other promiscuous delinquent youths. It wasn't a huge step then towards the legalisation of compulsory sterilization at the decision of the local Party, who decreed that certain elements of society should be nipped in the bud and no longer allowed to replicate themselves.

From there it became feasible to imagine not only the enforced sterilization of undesirables but their elimination. After all, if you are stopping a particular kind of person from reproducing, why not go a stage further back and stop them living? 

Now I am not for a moment saying that those who promote assisted dying are like the Nazis. Let me say again - much of the instinct behind the move is compassionate, and I can understand the impulse to help those in pain, a desire to minimise suffering. My point is rather that what can seem initially harmless and inconsequential can in retrospect be the crossing of a hidden red line that leads to more damaging and destructive consequences further down the road. Allowing doctors to deliberately cause a person's death may just be that crossing of a hidden barrier that could lead to more sinister steps seeming more acceptable in future. 

Of course this argument may be dismissed as the 'slippery slope' argument - but the reality is that slopes are often slippery, which is why you want to be careful before you start stepping out on one. Germany did not suddenly go from a 'normal' society to one that could tolerate mass state murder of its own citizens overnight. It happened gradually, incrementally, step by step, almost while no-one, even 'good' people, noticed. It is to my mind one of the arguments that should make us pause before legalising Assisted Dying, however desirable it may seem to stop someone's pain. You never know where it will lead once you step out on that path.