Bioethics in Faith and Practice, Volume 3, Number 1

26 Swazo ⦁ Non-voluntary Euthanasia 26 on their physical condition as one that is degenerative without hope of improvement until death, a condition that, because miserable and pitiable, in his view calls for relief he deems a consequence of active euthanasia. Thus, as Kass remarks, were one accepting of this appeal, “Not the autonomous will of the patient, but the doctor’s benevolent and compassionate love for suffering humanity [ostensibly] justifies the humane act of mercy killing. ” 21 In other words, “Good and humane intentions can sanctify any deed,” including, therefore, the physician’s act of killing so motivated. 22 It is in this sense that Mr. Hossain readily disputes an outsider’s incredulity in the face of his request, to the effect that one does not understand the “severity” of the situation—to be measured in the suffering of the sons and grandson as well as the father’s own distress under the circumstances. Of course, Kass rejects the permissibility of voluntary active euthanasia, whether accounting for patient request or the physician’s motivation. For him, further, “the true parent refuses ‘to surrender or abandon the child, knowing that it would be deeply self-contradictory to deny the fact of one’s parenthood, whatever the child may say or do”—“the role of the parent” is such that one “should never ‘give up’ on one’s children. ” 23 While appealing to a criterion of consistency, i.e., to avoid self-contradictory behavior, it is also presupposed here that there are norms of parenthood that are somehow governing. However, an appeal to the miserable and pitiable condition of these individuals presumably would still be a factor in a parent’s or physician’s assessment of a request for non-voluntary or involuntary active euthanasia, as in present case. The question then is whether that is a sufficient reason to authorize an affirmative response to the father’s request. And, clearly, there is no obvious justification to accept the father’s argument insofar as it presents a false dilemma (limiting the options to government provided medical care or active euthanasia) when there are other interventions possible (e.g., local charity organization support; non- governmental organization (NGO) support, etc. One more obvious protest against accepting such a request is the consequentialist slippery slope argument, which is expected at the least “to give us pause” if not “to stop us in our tracks” completely and thereby to take a different path in view of unacceptable consequences predicted with a view to some degree of importance (very, moderate, low) and degree of probability (high, moderate, low). 24 And, indeed, as R.G. Frey reminds, this sort of argument does not present us with a claim of causal necessity thereby: “The claim is not that we shall be compelled through causal necessity to descend the slope…[The] claim is rather that if we take step A, then it becomes empirically very likely that we shall take steps B and C. ” 25 In the case of physician-assisted suicide or assisted dying (whichever conceptual form of the issue suits one), “a slippery slope argument suggests that we shall nevertheless be led down the slope of taking life to terminating the incompetent or to justifying involuntary termination” 26 — not to mention a subsequent point on the slope that is non-voluntary termination of life. This would be especially so in the case of those who are poor and/or elderly, or even, as in present case, those who are poor and children having incurable disease, are seemingly cognitively competent if otherwise minimally mentally dull and whose care is dependent on “a surrogate decision maker.” The present case, as a first publicly discussed case in the Bangladesh media, raises the issue of slippery slope insofar as (1) were the father’s requested action sanctioned it would set a precedent and could lead to further such actions taken under similar circumstances of medical prognosis; (2) the action, so sanctioned, would mean there was insufficient public deliberation as to justification of public law, policy, and regulation consistent with pertinent moral conceptual distinctions (active/passive euthanasia; voluntary/involuntary/nonvoluntary; etc.), in which case individuals could be harmed and wronged by government permitted active euthanasia. One must bear in mind here that Mr. Hossain, as surrogate decision maker, seeks what amounts to involuntary active euthanasia in the case of the older son (i.e., he is mentally competent but has not having expressly consented to the proposed active euthanasia) and non-voluntary active euthanasia in the