The Value of Life
by Aharon HaCohen
Euthanasia. Abortion. Embryonic stem cell research. We are so sophisticated, so philosophical and so politically correct, that we can't even call things what they are anymore. In order to have an honest discussion about topics of this nature, we must be straightforward about what we are dealing with. All of these fancy terms only mean one thing: the termination of human life. Now, as far as I am concerned, you better have a pretty good reason to justify such an action, because it is the preservation of human life that is at the core of what morality is all about. So before we can examine any particular case, it must be clear that not only is human life extremely valuable, but that it does not belong to any human being. In other words, no person brought himself into this world, and therefore no person has the right to terminate his life on Earth. Therefore, on a moral level, there is not any difference between murder and most suicides. Both of these are unquestionably wrong, under almost all circumstances. (There are cases in which people commit suicide in order to save other lives, and I would consider that to be moral.) There are however circumstances under which it may be necessary to kill, but this would only be morally permissible in cases in which the person that is being killed would have caused the death of others if he or she continued to live.
Life is so valuable that no human being has the right to terminate it, and that includes the people who are living this life, as well as their relatives and the doctors that are treating them (who for some reason occasionally think that they are God). Therefore, what Harold Donnely did was nothing less than cold-blooded murder. His brother Matthew's decision that he did not want to live is completely irrelevant, since he has no right to make a decision to terminate his life (just as he didn't make the decision to begin it). Suicide is murder, and if Matthew had shot himself- without his brother's assistance - it would still be murder. Pain and suffering does not provide justification for murder, any more than the doctor's estimation that he will live for only one more year. In many cases the doctors are completely wrong, and people go on to live for many years after they were supposed to have died. And if it is okay to terminate a life just because someone is not enjoying it at the moment, then we may as well liquidate half of the people in the homeless shelters, the nursing homes, the psychiatric wards…and for that matter all the cynical philosophers as well. We will probably all die eventually, but that doesn't mean that life becomes any less precious when death seems to be near, or when the pain is hard to bear.
It must be clear to you by now that I completely disagree with James Rachels' cynical article about "Active and Passive Euthanasia". The main problem with Rachels' approach is that he is making an assumption- based on the modern Western legal system- that "passive euthanasia" is okay. But this is far from my understanding of morality. If a doctor, or anyone for that matter, is in a situation in which he or she has the knowledge and the means to save a human life (without taking another equally innocent life in the process) and chooses not to…this is nothing less than murder! Of course, technically you are not "pulling a trigger", and you therefore may not be prosecuted, but in moral terms you are equally guilty, So technically I may be agreeing with Rachels – that there is no fundamental difference between the two, but we are on opposite sides of the spectrum. He is arguing for "active euthanasia", while I am arguing against "passive euthanasia". However, if you force me to choose between these two immoral actions, I would always prefer to be passive, only because I would never want to actively terminate a life. I am far more comfortable with God making that choice.
Unfortunately, there are times when we have to make that choice, and from my experience it can be very unpleasant even when it is clearly necessary. As an officer in an Israeli infantry unit, I was at times put in situations in which it was necessary to shoot (and sometimes kill) terrorists who were threatening the lives of soldiers and civilians. As a person who values human life, a pacifist may question how I can justify taking another person's life. But in the world that we live in, pacifism and human life are not values that can coexist. If you choose not to direct your sniper to shoot the terrorist who is spraying your unit with bullets from his Kalatchnikov, it may lead to the deaths of soldiers in your unit, as well as other innocent people who he will shoot later on. If you don't shoot the suicide bomber – who has the explosives strapped to his stomach and the detonation button in his hand- 20 or 30 innocent men, women and children will die. So it is because I put such a high value on human life, that I am willing to terminate it when necessary.
There is, however, a fundamental difference between the necessity of killing an armed terrorist to prevent him from taking other lives, and terminating the life of a patient in a hospital. In the hospital, you are making a choice between allowing a patient to live until God decides his time is up, and ending his life just for the sake of convenience (for the patient or for society). A patient's pain may be inconvenient to him or her, or someone who is in a coma or "vegetative state" may be an inconvenience to those who have to care for him or her. This inconvenience, however, is not sufficient moral justification to terminate a life. If I had to terminate a human life in the military, it was not out of convenience, but out of the necessity of saving many more lives. And when I use the word "terminate", this includes "allowing a person to die" (when I have the ability to save them). Therefore, once I shot a terrorist and disabled him to the point that he does not pose a threat, I would do whatever I possibly could to save his life. It would be wrong to allow anyone to die, unless it is clear that if they live they will cause others to die.
It is fascinating how sometimes the same people who put so much effort into saving the lives of the victims of genocide, will be the first ones to pull the plug on the respirator of a loved one. It is as if the lives of the dying children in Africa are somehow more valuable than the life of an old woman whose lungs are failing her in California. If we value life, than we must consistently do what ever we can to save a person, and this means that sometimes we must ignore the wishes of those who we care for. If a depressed man is standing on the ledge of a skyscraper and asks you to push him off, I hope you wouldn't even consider helping him "end his misery". And if someone accidentally falls from that same ledge, I hope you would try to save him. The same should be true in euthanasia cases. Pulling the plug on a respirator is equivalent to pushing the man off the ledge, and refusing to prolong the life of a dying person is equivalent to not attempting to save the man if he is falling.
The argument of "let them die in peace" is not very convincing, because what applies to sick people in the hospital should then apply to everyone else. Why should we help the poor, the homeless, the mentally ill or victims of genocide? We may as well just let them all "die in peace", since they will all die eventually anyway. Furthermore, if we follow Rachels' line of reasoning, genocide in itself is one of the most moral actions. If there are so many poor, homeless, and sick people in Africa, we should do them all a favor and help them "die in peace". But of course, this notion is completely ridiculous, because human life has a value that can't be measured in utilitarian terms. So instead of searching for fancy academic words to help justify the daily murder of innocent souls, let's put our efforts into preserving our ethical existence. After all, the value of human life is the foundation of all morality in this world.