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A Merciful End A Merciful End: The Euthanasia Movement in Modern America by Ian Dowbiggin Oxford Univ. Press, 2003 272 pp. $28 Merciful Release Merciful Release: A History of the British Euthanasia Movement by Nick Kemp Manchester Univ. Press, 2002 288 pp. $29.95, paper

Decades ago a prominent euthanasia proponent stated that "there is a place in humanity for murder, that is to say by killing the unfit." Another commanded, "Chloroform unfit children. Show them the same mercy that is shown beasts that are no longer fit to live." One might be forgiven for thinking that these were rantings of a Nazi leader, for they do reflect the ideology underlying the Nazi euthanasia program, during which about 100,000 handicapped Germans were murdered by physicians under government direction. But alas, these statements came from prominent British and American progressives—the former from the British physician Havelock Ellis, and the latter from the controversial American lawyer Clarence Darrow.

These statements illustrate two important points stressed by Ian Dowbiggin and Nick Kemp in their recent books on the euthanasia movement in the United States and Britain, respectively. First, despite efforts by Anglo-American euthanasia advocates to distance themselves from the horrors of the Nazi euthanasia program, the euthanasia movement was not as far removed from Nazi ideology as it wanted outsiders to believe. Second, statements supporting involuntary euthanasia for the mentally handicapped were rather common in the euthanasia movement, providing ammunition for euthanasia opponents. Critics of legislation to permit voluntary euthanasia continually protested that this would begin a rapid descent down a slippery slope.

Kemp points out that the slippery slope argument is not all that rigorous philosophically. The euthanasia movement has often capitalized on this by insisting that it only supports voluntary euthanasia (i.e., assisted suicide) for terminally ill patients enduring intense suffering. To emphasize that it only promoted voluntary measures, the British organization for euthanasia dubbed itself the Voluntary Euthanasia Legalization Society when it was founded in 1936, and after several name changes in between, adopted the name Voluntary Euthanasia Society in 1982.

Even so, the euthanasia movement's attempts to introduce legislation permitting voluntary euthanasia have been dogged by the criticism that this will start a dangerous descent into barbarism. Whether the slippery slope argument has logical rigor or not, the historical perspective sketched in Kemp's and Dowbiggin's books provides plenty of grist for the mill of those suspecting that the slope is slippery nonetheless.

The parallels between the euthanasia movement in the United States and Britain are striking. Both books demonstrate that the euthanasia debate emerged in response to ideological currents gaining ascendancy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Dowbiggin argues, in fact, that support for euthanasia was always driven more by the prevailing intellectual climate than by medical advances.

Culture of Death Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America by Lynn Schofield Clark Oxford Univ. Press, 2003 304 pp. $29.95

The first public debates over euthanasia occurred in the late 19th century, and both authors stress the importance of Darwinism in the advent of the euthanasia movement. Dowbiggin writes, "The most pivotal turning point in the early history of the euthanasia movement was the coming of Darwinism to America." Kemp thoroughly agrees: "While we should be wary of depicting Darwin as the man responsible for ushering in a secular age we should be similarly cautious of underestimating the importance of evolutionary thought in relation to the questioning of the sanctity of human life." This confirms my own findings about the connections between Darwinism and euthanasia on the German scene.

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