The Erasure of Autonomy
June 22, 2016
by Adam Lee
Earlier this month, California’s assisted-dying law went into effect. As I wrote previously, the bill was passed in a special session of the legislature last year, over the fierce opposition of religious groups.
At first, there was uncertainty about what Gov. Jerry Brown would do. Brown studied at a Jesuit seminary in his youth, and some people worried that his former beliefs lingered and would persuade him to veto the bill. But in the end, he signed it into law with a simple, powerful argument:
“In the end, I was left to reflect on what I would want in the face of my own death,” Brown added. “I do not know what I would do if I were dying in prolonged and excruciating pain. I am certain, however, that it would be a comfort to be able to consider the options afforded by this bill. And I wouldn’t deny that right to others.”
The dangerous trend of human beings making autonomous decisions about their own lives is spreading. Canada’s Parliament also just passed an assisted-dying law in accordance with a mandate from the country’s Supreme Court.
Both laws place strict conditions on when people may seek aid in dying: for example, they require patients to be suffering from a terminal illness, as opposed to an unbearable but not fatal ailment. California’s law also says that no doctor or hospital is required to prescribe lethal drugs or to tell people where they can go to obtain them, and Catholic hospitals have already, predictably, announced that they won’t participate. Even so, this is a step forward and a victory for the humanist moral principle that we’re the rightful owners of our lives, and we can choose to lay them down if suffering becomes unbearable.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylightatheism/2016/06/the-erasure-of-autonomy/#sthash.Zt6EBfD8.dpuf
