Life as an intrinsic rather than instrumental good: the "spiritual" case against euthanasia.

• Author: Bleich, J. David

"But your blood of your lives will I require; from the hand of every beast will I require it, and from the hand of man, from the hand of a person's brother, will I require the life of man."(1) This earliest and most detailed biblical prohibition against homicide contains one phrase that is an apparent redundancy. Since the phrase "from the hand of man" pronounces man culpable for the murder of this fellow man, to what point is it necessary for Scripture to reiterate "from the hand of a person's brother will I require the life of a man"? Fratricide is certainly no less heinous a crime than ordinary homicide. A nineteenth century biblical scholar, Rabbi Jacob Zevi Mecklenburg, in his commentary on the Pentateuch, Ha-Ketav ve-haKabbalah, astutely comments that, while murder is the antithesis of brotherly love, in some circumstances the taking of the life one's fellow man may be perceived as indeed being an act of love par excellence.(2) Euthanasia, designed to put an end to unbearable suffering, is born not of hatred or anger but of concern and compassion. It is precisely the taking of life even under circumstances in which it is manifestly obvious that the perpetrator is motivated by feelings of love and brotherly compassion that the Bible finds necessary to brand as murder, pure and simple. Despite the noble intent that prompts such an action, mercy killing is proscribed as an unwarranted intervention in an area that must be governed only by God himself. The life of man may be reclaimed only by the Author of life. As long as man is yet endowed with a spark of life--as defined by God's eternal law--man dare not presume to hasten death, no matter how hopeless or meaningless continued existence may appear to be in the eyes of a mortal perceiver.

Indeed, there is some cogency to the argument that a dogmatic prohibition against homicide is necessary only in order to proscribe euthanasia. The Talmud lays down the rule that a person must allow himself ot be put to death rather than take the life of his fellow.(3) Force majeure cannot, in good conscience, be advanced as justification for an act of homicide. This rule constitutes one of only three exceptions to the general principle in Jewish law that preservation of human life, regardless of the quality of duration of the life saved, takes precedence over all other considerations. The other exceptions are based upon hermeneutic modes of biblical exegesis. No such basis exists upon which the rule might be predicted requiring a person to accept martyrdom rather than allowing himself to be coerced to commit an act of murder. The Talmudic justification is that this rule of law is based upon reason alone. It is self-evident that such an act cannot be justified, since, asserts the Talmud, "Why do you think that your blood is sweeter than the blood of your fellow?"(4) That moral judgment is regarded as an a priori perception of the human conscience; in effect, it is regarded as a proposition of natural law. It would then follow, a fortiri, that man, as a moral creature, is fully capable of recognizing by the light of his own reason that ordinary acts of murder commited for ignoble reasons, or commited wantonly for no reason at all, are heinous in nature. If so, there is no need for a prohibition based upon divine revelation. Revelation is necessary precisely because the act is prohibited even in those situations in which man's moral faculty, if left to its own devices, would not recognize the deed as repugnant, viz., when the taking of human life consistutes an act of euthanasia.

The value of human life is supreme and takes precedence over virualaly all other consierations. This attitude is most eloquently summed up in a Talmudic passage regarding the creation of Adam: "Therefore only a single human being was created in the world, to teach that if any person has caudsed a single sould to perish, Scripture regards him as if he had caused an entire world to perish; and if any human being saves a single soul, Scripture regards him as if he had saved an entire world."(5) Human life is not a good to be preserved as a condition of other values but as an absolute, basic, and precious good in its own stead. The oligation to preserve life is commensurately all-encompassing.

Accordingly, life with suffering is regarded as being, in many cases, preferable to termination of life and with it elimination of suffering. The Talmud(6) and Maimonides(7) indicate that the adulterous woman who was made to drink "the bitter waters"(8) did not always die immediately. If she possessed other merit, even though guility of the offense with which she was charged, the waters, rather than causing her to perish immediately, produced a debilitating and degenerative state that led to a protracted termination of life. The added longevity, although accompanied by pain and suffering, was viewed as a privilege bestowed in recognition of meritorious action. Life accompanied by pain is thus viewed as preferable to death. It is this sentiment that is reflected in the words of the Psalmist: "The Lord had indeed punished me, but He has not life me to die."(9)

This, however, does not necessarily mean that we can understand why life, even when accompanied by suffering, is preferable to elimination of pain through the foreshortening of life. The Talmud(10) presents a remarkable elucidfation of the biblical verse "In those days Hezekiah was sick unto death and the prophet, Isaiah the son of Amoz, cvame to him and said unto him, 'Thus said the Lord: Command your house, for you shall die and not live.'"(11) The Talmud explains that King Hezekiah correctly understood the redundancy inherent in the phrase "you shall die and not live" as meaning "you shall die in this world and not live in the world to come." Going beyond the scriptural text, the Talmud then relates that Hezekiah...