‘Existential distress’, not pain, drives euthanasia

Euthanasia victims in Canada tend to be white and relatively affluent

Xavier Symons | May 31 2017 | comment

The debate over euthanasia is often framed in terms of unbearable pain. Yet a new review of assisted dying cases in Toronto suggests that patients are primarily concerned about a “loss of control” over their lives, rather than refractory pain symptoms.

The study, published in the current edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, reviewed data on assisted dying cases from the University Hospital Network (UNH), an Ontario healthcare and medical research organisation that operates four major hospitals in the Toronto area.

According the researchers, the primary reason why UNH patients requested assisted dying was to relieve “existential distress”. The review states:

“Those who received MAiD tended to be white and relatively affluent and indicated that loss of autonomy was the primary reason for their request. Other common reasons included the wish to avoid burdening others or losing dignity and the intolerability of not being able to enjoy one’s life. Few patients cited inadequate control of pain or other symptoms.”

According to Madeline Li, the principal author of the study, patients primarily wanted control over how their lives will end: “Their quality of life is not what they want.” Li told the Washington Post. “They are mostly educated and affluent — people who are used to being successful and in control of their lives, and it’s how they want their death to be”.

Similar findings have been reported in studies of US and European data.

In a recent article in the Medical Journal of Australia, American bioethicist Ezekiel Emanuel argued that the presence of existential distress in assisted dying cases counts as a reason not to legalise euthanasia:

“What is then the great impetus to legalise interventions to end lives for a small minority of patients who are depressed, worried about losing autonomy and being tired of life? We should end the focus on the media frenzy about euthanasia and PAS as if it were the panacea to improving end-of-life care.”

Xavier Symons is deputy editor of BioEdge, from which this article has been republished.

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May 31, 2017

There is one fact about euthanasia which ought to be front and centre in debates, wherever they take place. Nearly everyone who requests it is not suffering from unbearable pain.

As one of the leading bioethicists in the United States, Ezekiel Emanuel, points out, existential angst is the main reason. “We should end the focus on the media frenzy about euthanasia and PAS [physician-assisted suicide] as if it were the panacea to improving end-of-life care,” he says. And Dr Emanuel, the brother of President Obama’s one-time chief-of-staff, is not in the pro-life camp.

This finding has been confirmed again and again. As Xavier Symons reports in today’s issue of MercatorNet, most of the victims of Canada’s new euthanasia legislation are affluent and educated and dread losing their autonomy.

If euthanasia is “needed” because people are lonely and dependent, surely the solution is solidarity and companionship, rather than a lethal injection.