I think David Brooks summarized both sides well
The weakness of the social conservative case is that for most of us, especially in these days of advanced medical technology, it is hard to ignore distinctions between different modes of living. In some hospital rooms, there are people living forms of existence that upon direct contact do seem even worse than death....
The central weakness of the liberal case is that it is morally thin. Once you say that it is up to individuals or families to draw their own lines separating life from existence, and reasonable people will differ, then you are taking a fundamental issue out of the realm of morality and into the realm of relativism and mere taste.
Neither side can claim all the right in an open society that is tolerant of some different standards in moral judgements, but not all different standards.
There will never be a right answer, only compromises fought over and over again in public debates, in courts, and legislatures...Thus our society makes infanticide illegal, but early abortion legal.
This case hits all the same hot issues as abortion does, over where society should set the parameters of legal behavior, what is the scope for individual autonomy and decision, what powers should be accorded to doctors, the next of kin, or the courts when the families and doctors disagree.
There will always be a gray area, and modern medicine is making the gray area larger and not smaller. Suppose medicine developed life support systems that could keep the brain dead breathing and fed for the rest of their natural life span; would you oppose pulling the plug even then? If not, haven't you too started down your slippery slope?
If you answer, no, because brain dead is dead, what happens if medicine turns 'dead' into a reversible condition under certain circumstances, like on Star Trek? What happens then? You don't want to stop treatment if they can get better, but do you accept a person who is incurable total loss of brain function as a still living being? What if the loss of the brain function is not total, but still supplies autonomic nerve function but with no consciousness whatsoever? Should a person be required by the state to live as a vegetable, even if they didn't want to and their family members don't want them to?
There will never be a hard line or a right answer. |
