The Right to Death

Men suffering muscular dystrophy eventually get tied up to the hospital bed for an undetreminate time. Maybe their lifetime. Piergiorgio (not the man in the picture) himself had no means of communication, save by moving his eyelids. The advances in medicine might have given him a chance to walk again, but who is to say when and whether he will have enough money to pay for the treatment. By the time he was assisted in his suicide, he had already spent two years in bed, immobile. Imagine what it must be like lying in bed, paralyzed, while your mind is racing, coming up with new ideas and things to do all the time, and your body refusing to obey, and not even your pinky wants to move. Does it not struck you that in such a position you would, day by day, be going mad inside your head, at first over the frustration of not being able to act on your desires, and then over the fact that you cannot even show your frustration, or grimace it somehow, or communicate it? Would you not begin hating the machines and the people who are keeping you in such a vegetable state? Would you not rather be unplugged? Image from Fiji 2001.

Some days ago, I heard of a news report on an Italian named Piergiorgio Welby, who was suffering from muscular dystrophy and could thus only communicate by moving his eyelids. For this reason, he did not want to continue living. For this reason, the report said, he had to figt to obtain his “right to death”.

The report showed exactly the degree of ignorance of what rights are to an individual. This man did not seek to obtain the right to death, he was seeking to obtain his right to life! Why is that so? To answer this question, I will have to re-examine the very reason people have rights in the first place.

Unlike the mysticist teachings, which say that rights are given to man by a god or gods, individual rights have a rational basis. The concept of rights emerges when one asks the simple question: How are men supposed to live together and to collaborate in harmony? Now, the mysticist will be quick to answer that there is no rational answer to this question, and will rush to introduce his divine insight and how all men will live together and in harmony if they all worship the same god and follow the rules that god gave them; though – let’s face it – the mysticist himself invented the god and the rules. On the contrary, however, there is a rational answer to that question. It is contained within the concept of individual rights.

The right to live states that each individual is free to live his life, and do whatever he deems necessary to keep his life. It states no more and no less. The right to property defines the means by which he may exercise his right to life. It states no more and no less and it is not an expansion of the right to life, nor a factor which limits it to a certain domain. It is only a rational derivative of the right to life. The right to liberty defines the domain in which man is free to utilize his means. It states no more and no less. It is not an expansion nor a limiting factor of the beforementioned rights. It is the rational derivative of the right to life.

It may seem that the right to property and the right to liberty somehow limit the right to life, however they do not. It says that the right to life means one may do whatever he deems necessary to keep his life. The first thing that comes to mind is – does that include killing a man? It does. However, consider the scenario in which it is absolutely necessary to kill a man in order to preserve your own life. The most obvious one is when that man physically assaults you and threatens to kill you. Another might involve him stealing so much from you that you are doomed to starvation. Yet another might involve imprisoning you so that you are not able to get any food for yourself and again your life is threatened. Note that in all of these, your rights are violated. In the first, it is your right to life directly; in the second, it is your right to life again, but through the route of your right to property; in the third again your right to life, through the route of your right to liberty. You can see how deeply interconnected these rights are and that in fact, other rights are derivatives of the right to life and not its limitations.

So how do men collaborate using these rights? Simply by exercising their right to life. People want their lives to be easier, and if this can be done in collaboration with other people, then they will collaborate – and they are free to do so. Most often they will accomplish this by trading. If you move in little steps, from the basic principles laid out here, you will notice how the entire civilized society rests on these principles. If they are correctly interpreted and consistently implemented, the social system that “springs out” is laissez-faire capitalism – at this point the only known moral social system, which, unfortunately, has never existed.

How is this connected to the story of Welby’s “right to death”? Read carefully what the right to life says. It says that each individual is free to live his life. But if he does not want that life, then he can die. The right to life states that implicitly – once you are alive, you can either take it or leave it. If you don’t want to live, then die, no matter how terrible this may sound. But as long as you live, you are free to continue being alive – and interpreted without fallacy, this means at your own expense. The most basic of all choices – to be or not to be – is yours and yours alone!

This is why Piergiorgio Welby did not, in fact, fight for his right to death, but his right to life. By denying him the right to die, we would indirectly be violating this basic choice and making him accept our choice instead, and thus we are violating his right to live (or not live) his life. We are stating then that he must live no matter what kind of life that is – whether in constant agony, or complete paralysis (which is, in essence, only another kind of agony – a psychological one). Normally, however, he is the one to make that call, not us.

It was, therefore, correct of the doctor to assist his suicide, as he was unable to do this himself. But the reasons they offered are petty at best. They chose not to stand behind the principles laid out here and instead they hid behind the cloaks of refused medical care. Welby had refused to be treated and the doctors used this as an excuse to unplug him, while they had better principles to invoke, and these principles are individual rights, namely the right to life. It is a sad thing when good deeds are done in such a way, by invoking lesser principles at the expense of greater ones. It would have been by far more delivering if the doctor who unplugged Welby from the instruments which kept him alive, said “I did it because Welby had the right to live – and he chose not to practice it.” This would have shown clearly that he was not ashamed or afraid of it, and it would have shown that he is certain that he had done the right thing. Stating your principles always does that.