In one of his memorable comments on the current state of Europe, the late Pope Francis expressed the wish that, in a world gripped by turmoil and war, the old continent becomes a field hospital for victims from the four corners of the globe.
The comment implies that real or imagined victimhood provides anyone with a seat at the high table of privileges cast as human rights.
In other words, the unorthodox comment put the pontiff on the side of those who have tried to transform their definition of human rights into a secular religion, unencumbered by the traditional concept of duty upheld by traditional religions.
Last week, the French parliament passed a bill that will enshrine a new right in the law of the land: "the right to die."
The issue was first raised in Europe almost 30 years ago, and led to Switzerland and Holland to become the first havens for the right-to-die.
At first, the new "right" was presented as "mercy killing".
That had to change because of the politically incorrect word "killing." A new phrase was put into circulation: "assisted suicide." That too was discarded, because suicide is illegal in most European judicial systems. Then we got "assisted dying." But to die is an intransitive verb; if you add assisted, you make it transitive, which implies murder. Politically correct lexicographers opted for "the right to die", sending the ball back to the victim.
However, that, too, caused a problem. First, dying isn't a right because every living being shall suffer or enjoy it when the time comes.
As the Persian poet Ghazayei said: "From the moment we are born-our death also begins!"
Thus, what is at issue isn't the right to die but the exercise of that right.
Woke elites couldn't accept the theological position that reserves the right to take life for the Creator. Nor is the pagan position that leaves that right to nature with a capital N.
Nor are mythological gods and goddesses acceptable to the woke elites that broke with Athens and Jerusalem long ago.
The term that finally emerged and was used in the French debate last week is "euthanasia," a crafty shibboleth from a Greek stem.
The text, however, shows that what is proposed is killing of people branded as terminally ill and, you guessed it, victims who have drawn the wrong lot.
In a sense, the right to die is an inevitable extension of the right to abortion, which is also supposed to be exercised under strict limitations, but often isn't. (One example: Last week, the Islamic Office for Demography in Tehran announced that the number of abortions in Iran has risen to almost half a million each year.)
Spokesmen for virtually all major religions have condemned euthanasia on the grounds that giving and taking lives is a prerogative of the Divine and not a matter of individual choice. Some of the language used by religious leaders recalls the "bell, book and candle" vocabulary of the inquisition.
Supporters of euthanasia argue that keeping alive terminally ill patients, who are often subject to excruciating pain, is both inhuman and economically wasteful. Resources that are "wasted" on keeping such patients alive would be better-employed in providing more effective treatment and care for others with curable illnesses. One estimate of the financial savings that euthanasia might generate comes to $1 billion a year.
Euthanasia is the latest manifestation of efforts to submit all aspects of life to the cold logic of scientific analysis in the hope of imposing strictly rational control on human existence. What is interesting is that "the right to die" is not complemented by a corresponding "right to be born". In almost all cases, those who support "the right to die" also support the right to kill the unborn baby in the name of abortion.
They are also vague on the subject of children born with incurable diseases and thus subjected to a life of suffering. The latter point merits emphasis, because the number of incurable diseases or conditions is far larger than one may imagine. Diabetes is incurable, although it can be treated. Shortsightedness is also incurable, although it can be corrected by the use of spectacles. If we were to "cull" all human beings who suffer from various ailments, very few people would be left on this earth.
The logic of euthanasia might make sense if applied to the source of life as well. It is senseless to allow people to be born when we know they will, at some stage in their lives, be afflicted by incurable disease that would cause them great suffering.
The absolutely healthy and perfect human being is a myth that would appeal to Nazis and other fanatics of biological perfection and social engineering. Taking their position to its absurd but logically consistent conclusion, we should organize a new global system of producing only "perfect" human beings who will not fall ill or suffer, the dream or nightmare desired by Josef Mengele.
Many geneticists are already working in that direction. Research on ways of "correcting" human DNA defects is clearly aimed at such a goal. New computer software to help individuals and couples achieve "perfect" biological matches also fall into the same category.
But the question is; who decides all that? The answer is: scientists and doctors who are answerable to no one.
The new law requires that the decision to die be taken by the patient himself. But how can someone subjected to excruciating pain be in a condition to make a life-and-death decision?
The economic argument advanced in favor of euthanasia is even more scandalous. If we were to apply the principle of cost-effectiveness to every human existence, we would quickly realize the folly of such procedures. There are hundreds of millions of people in the poor countries who contribute nothing or very little to the global economy. And there are tens of millions of old-age pensioners in the richest nations who represent a burden for the public treasury. To decide who lives and who dies on the basis of financial calculations is one example of reason gone mad.
Aristotle, the father of logic, was aware of the dangers of taking rationality into the uncharted territories of human existence. He had also warned that any system that exaggerates its fundamental principle is doomed to destruction. In this case, too much rationality kills reason.
There are areas of life, some would say the most important, that cannot and must not be subjected to cold scientific logic. These include love, friendship, taste, talent and, of course, joy and pain. Why do we fall in love with those two particular black eyes and not others in the world? Why do we feel the grace of friendship with this or that particular individual out of billions of human beings? Why do we like the voice of this singer and not the other, and the poetry of this poet and not another? How is it that we can paint reasonably well but sing worse than a frog?
Some areas of human existence must be allowed to retain the mystery that they have always enjoyed in the mystical chiaroscuro of the human condition.
We should not decree love, friendship and talent. Nor should we try to decree death. Euthanasia, a Greek word, means "mercy killing," and was initially coined to describe the administration of the coup de grâce to badly wounded horses. Human beings, however, cannot be treated the same way as horses. Nor can a doctor of medicine act like a stable boy.
Amir Taheri was the executive editor-in-chief of the daily Kayhan in Iran from 1972 to 1979. He has worked at or written for innumerable publications, published eleven books, and has been a columnist for Asharq Al-Awsat since 1987.
Gatestone Institute would like to thank the author for his kind permission to reprint this article in slightly different form from Asharq Al-Awsat. He graciously serves as Chairman of Gatestone Europe.
