EUTHANASIA.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 285, 2 December 1925, Page 9

EUTHANASIA.

WHEN HUMAN BEINGS SUFFER. SHOULD WE HASTEN DEATH ? WHERE KILLING IS MURDER. j There lay slowly dying in an agony which even the merciful morphia needle could not wholly alleviate, a little mite 0 £ a chi!d. "Oh, doctor!" said the nurse, wrung to the point of hysteria with the pity of it all, herself tortured with witnessing the torture of the child; "could yo not give her an overdose and let her go —you know she will linger for days like this!" "Woman," said the doctor, turning fiercely upo her. ''Woman, are you mad 1 Have I the power of life and death. ' The doctor, too, was overwrought with the suffering of his little patient, whom ■ no skill could now avail; and his misery was accentuated by the knowledge, that, , as the nurse had said, the child might linger for days. Yet he could do nothing, ] excepting to try and alleviate the little ; one's with just sufficient morphia , to "dope" her-—but not enough to • mercifully end her torture. That, in the eyes of the law, would be murder. It is laid down that Nature must take her ] course, however cruel, and at whatever ( cost of human suffering. . i The "Happy Dispatch." Among some savage tribes, in older days, at least, it was the custom to give the "happy dispatch" to the suffering, and to the aged who would interfere with the activity of the tribe, often < engaged in warfare, in rapid marching, i or flight. Australian aborigines on the s march would abandon, to die or to recover as fate ordained, any who fell i ill by the way, without any idea of ending their suffering with the club or a spear. But they were savages who could j ill comprehend suffering, and who, when . they rarely fell ill, would generally die j as the result of complete surrender to death. But in many other countries, \ savage races would not only refuse aid to the sick, but would club them to j death, and also put the old folk out of [ the way, and deal similarly with an s overplus of babies. , To come to our . own civilisation. "Euthanasia," or the painless putting to f death of sufferers who have no hope of r recovery, has f-equently been advocated on-humanitarian grounds—and it has oh : rare occasions that we know of, been put into practice, sometimes with dire results to the person who has' yielded to the pleadings of the sufferer. Men have been' imprisoned, and even gone to the gallows J for exercising this form of humanitarian-1 ism.- , j

. • An American Case. The most recent.case of euthanasia tc come under notice—-and one must conclude that- it was skilfully executed, seeinc that the practioner was a medican man -4s that cabled from America. This was the pathetic affair of Dr. Harold Elmer Blazey, an aged physician, who killed his imbecile daughter, aged 34, last summer. American newspapers had devoted . considerable space to the controversy which ensued, as to whether "lnurder for love" should lie added to the list of "convenient crimes" committed under tlie general heading of "the unwritten law"—which law is very considerably stretched in the land of the Stars-and' Stripes. ..Lawyers for the defence urged that the crime of Dr. Blazer (if.it was a crime other than in law) was dictated by a father's love and natural desire to bring peace to a Buffering child. "A human husk" was how tliiey described the dead woman, in their attempt to justify the killing as "a merciful murder", committed by a parent out of love and -humanity. In this case the jury failed to agree, so that there is yet no final answer in America to the appeal to justify euthanasia.

Father and Son. j Coming nearer home, there was the | recent case in Sydney, in which a sou, i yielding- to the continued implorations of I i niifei'Mig father, supplied him with a revolver, aud the father ended his own sufferings.' It was proved that there had j been a.particularly strong affection be- | ween father and son, and for this reason | doubtless the jury was influenced, whilst bringing fn the unavoidable verdict of; murder, in compliance with British law,' to add a rider recommending that the ' youth h e set at liberty. This rider was complied with, the "murderer" being admited to probation. Of course this was an extraordinary case, and cannot be regarded as forming a precedent. Emulation of this offender's action, even under the most excusable circumstances, would , 1)0 highly dangerous. The Medical Attitude. The attitude of the medical profession ' on this matter is well summarised in the answer of the doctor to the nurse in the ' ease of the suffering child:— j "Have 1 the power of life and death?" It is a power thai no medical man is Willing to assume, even though he knows that the death of his patient is in the natural course inevitable. The sugges"°n is made that in cases which seem suitable for tlie application of euthanasia —where days, weeks, or even mouths of suffering must accompany the lingering of l'.fe—there should be consultation of, B ay,..three doctors, and that if their verW. is that life could only be prolonged at the cost of sufferiug to the patient ami misery to others, without any hope whatever of the patient's recovery, then the final act of medicine should be per- , formed.- I hut medical opinion is that it would U(i very hard to get three doctors to take Upon themselves tlie ordering of death. , there is in them the inherent fear of | taking human life, even though that life be already doomed. And, it is argued, "-"■' en three doc-tors might err in some ■ cases, for patients have been known to j H'cover from the most prolonged and j agonising illnesses, after all hope hal | heen abandoned. These may be | 'miracles," but many such exist. The j problem of euthanasia is no easy one to ! solve. ' j