The Sweet Death of Good Intentions

The bill, drafted on the basis of the text proposed by the Coscioni Association, has been passed by a large majority in the Regional Council in Venice, with the support of part of the centre-right. It is the first region not led by the centre-left to adopt a law regulating assisted suicide within its territory, pending the introduction of national legislation. The text drafted by the regional president, Alberto Stefani, is measured. However, critics warn that the path toward euthanasia is often paved with good intentions, and the ‘safeguards’ included in the legislation may not remain effective over time.

Where euthanasia is regulated (and normalised), it has evolved from a compassionate and humanitarian measure into a morally indifferent standard, towards which all (too many) people deemed eligible can easily be directed: disabled children, those with mental health conditions, and people suffering from loneliness and depression. First come the borderline cases, portrayed as injustices. Then judges, invoking equality and dignity, dismantle a barrier. Then the media normalise the practice. Then doctors become accustomed to it and the oversight committees become retrospective and weak. Finally, the number rises not only because more people are requesting it, but because more people are deemed eligible. The proportion of total deaths rises: in some countries it is now approaching 4–5 per cent (Belgium and the Netherlands). The terminally ill and the chronically depressed, adults and minors ‘capable of discernment’, those kept alive by machines and those who are ‘tired of living’ all end up in the same category: they differ in degree, not in kind. When life begins to be measured according to criteria of autonomy, compassion turns into subtle pressure; the state organises death as a service; life ceases to be an inalienable right and becomes a balance between costs and ‘quality’. We have found ourselves on a slippery slope – which is not an alarmist metaphor, but the way in which norms change when they cease to be exceptions and become part of the cultural fabric.