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5. Terminal illness is only a minor factor among those who seek pas or euthanasia. Historian Kevin Yuill reported in The Spectator that in Holland "only 2 or 3 percent of all patients with terminal illnesses choose voluntary euthanasia." In the study of Kevorkian's "patients," only 25 percent appeared to be terminally ill, according to autopsy findings. The number of those who had experienced recent decline in health status, and who therefore may have been seriously discouraged, was 72 percent. And a large percentage were experiencing some sort of social isolation. The divorced, widowed, and never-married were disproportionately represented at 69 percent. In addition, a Detroit Free Press study of three "patients" who had "no medical problems" found that all "took mood-altering drugs and painkillers, and had histories of psychiatric problems or diseases that were difficult to diagnose."

The role of discouragement, depression, and social isolation in death decisions must be studied very carefully, for the experience of isolation can mesh with the cultural values of individualism in dangerous ways.

One Canadian pundit wrote that "if the Netherlands didn't exist, high school debating clubs would have to invent it" and called the country "a one-stop shop for libertarian ideas." Those libertarian ideas—which include a broad tolerance of drugs, sex-for-sale, and gay marriage—are descended from a noble Dutch tradition of individual freedom. After the Reformation, English pilgrims and Swiss Anabaptists found a haven from religious persecution in Holland before eventually migrating to American shores. Today's Dutch libertarianism is a perversion of that fine tradition.

The libertarian arguments offered by euthanasia and pas advocates appeal to highly individualized notions of autonomy, rationality, and dignity. But the best biblical and secular thinkers have recognized that we are inescapably social creatures, and that we are most free when we are enmeshed in supportive, intimate relationships. Living or dying, it is not good for man to be alone. Divorced from emotional and physical support systems, an individual can easily rationalize the urge to end life. However, in the context of mutual support, enormous suffering can be borne and transcended for the sake of love.

6. The argument is becoming increasingly centered on belief in God. Yes, much liberal Christian rhetoric appeals to so-called compassion. And the Hemlock Society is not ignoring the supernatural dimension. (It even has "chaplains" who help candidates weigh their choices in the light of the suspect literature on Near Death Experiences.)

But arguments against euthanasia or PAS fail to persuade when they are divorced from belief in God. Writing in Canada's National Post, an advocate of PAS who is unconvinced by mushy religious arguments called for clarity:

Arguing about the risk of abuse in the context of euthanasia is a lot like weighing the evidence of crime deterrence in the context of capital punishment: It is merely a rhetorical sideshow in which pundits who have already decided the issue along ideological and spiritual lines trot out empirical studies that happen to support their side. The Vatican denounces the new Dutch bill as an affront to "human dignity." [Bioethicist Margaret] Somerville tells us euthanasia does violence to "the human spirit" and our "sense of the sacred." At their root, both arguments represent variations on the same mystical idea: that it is somehow degrading and morally wrong if the time and manner of a human death is not left to a higher power. Only by invoking God … can opponents of euthanasia overcome the utilitarian presumption that it is correct and good to answer a person's plea for death.

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February 5 2001, Vol. 45, No. 2