Ending Pain Shouldn’t Mean Ending Lives : Suicide: Court decisions reflect popular fears, not necessarily true, about suffering.

Two court decisions--a jury verdict in Michigan and a constitutional ruling by a federal judge in Washington state--have raised the stakes in our national debate on euthanasia.

A Michigan jury’s acquittal of Jack Kevorkian last Monday was shocking to many of us who believe in the rule of law. The state had a clear statute against assisting a suicide and the defendant openly confessed his involvement. But Kevorkian and his attorney wove a web of confusion around this simple case. Jurors ultimately said they weren’t sure in what county the death took place or whether Kevorkian intended to cause death. All they knew was that he tried to end the victim’s suffering.

Judge Barbara Rothstein’s decision on Tuesday that Washington state’s law against assisted suicide is unconstitutional displayed even more confusion.

The judge compared physician-assisted suicide to abortion and to the refusal of life-sustaining treatment, arguing that it should have equally strong legal protection. Oddly, she then proceeded to claim that “assisted suicide” decisions could be tightly regulated to apply only to competent, terminally ill adults who voluntarily choose to kill themselves.

This made no sense in light of the legal precedents she chose. Ever since it was made a constitutional “right” in 1973, abortion has existed without meaningful qualification. And the right to refuse treatment, wherever it is treated as a constitutional right, also extends far beyond “terminally ill” patients.

In both areas of law, mentally incompetent patients routinely have their rights exercised for them by others--even if they themselves never expressed any preference in the matter. Courts, guardians and families frequently use “substituted judgment” to make treatment decisions for unconscious patients.

The same happens with abortion. In Rothstein’s own state of Washington, just a few months ago, a court ordered a second-trimester abortion for a mentally retarded woman, arguing that “the normal woman under these circumstances would have an abortion.” Will we have long to wait before judges decide when it is “normal” to have euthanasia and to act accordingly?

These decisions have little to do with personal freedom and much to do with a certain way of thinking about human life. In both cases, everyone claimed to be trying to prevent suffering. Rothstein even said that the state has no legitimate interest in preventing suicide by terminally ill patients because “preventing suicide simply means prolonging a dying person’s suffering.”

The attitude that suffering has no possible value or meaning--and more, that human lives that include suffering have no value or meaning--is popular in our comfort-loving, pain-free society. In some areas of life, we appreciate the need to accept and overcome hardships--”no pain, no gain,” say our fitness gurus. But when it comes to dying, we are afraid of pain, of being dependent on others and of losing our dignity.

Those fears have been aggravated by some of the excesses of modern high-technology medicine. But it need not be so. No one should imagine that our only alternative to legalized euthanasia is pain-wracked and horrible death, though that is what the euthanasia movement wants us to believe.

The kind of care exemplified in the hospice movement is a compelling answer to the slogans of euthanasia advocates. This care does not involve unduly prolonging life for people with terminal illnesses. But through effective pain control, nursing care and simple human compassion, it helps people to live with dignity for as long as they are with us.

This is not to say that we can be guaranteed a death without suffering--just as no one is guaranteed a life without suffering. But suffering can be kept in human bounds. It can be faced with dignity and courage, and it need not be faced alone.

Christians, in particular, believe that loving acceptance of suffering can lead to enormous personal growth. We agree with the psychologists who have called the dying process the final stage of human growth. But we also believe in acting to relieve needless suffering. The Good Samaritan, who instinctively responded with healing and comfort when he saw a neighbor in need, is a model for all of us.

Otherwise, a radically different and destructive response to suffering will become the norm in our confused society.

Says Dr. Joanne Lynn, a specialist on care for the aging: “It is an outrage for us to seriously discuss killing the sufferer rather than relieving the suffering.” That outrage must be fought.

People who affirm life and love from within their suffering are doing the most important work on Earth. Their lives and their struggles are filled with far more meaning than the petty day-to-day activities that we call “productive” work. It’s about time we said so, before our most meaningful citizens are shuffled off into Jack Kevorkian’s van.