Lesson video

Hello, Miss Kendrick and welcome to this lesson where we're going to be looking at religious and nonreligious responses to euthanasia.

So we're going to be looking at what is euthanasia and what the UK law is on it.

Why someone might request euthanasia.

Christian, Islamic, and humanist responses.

And we're also going to be looking at a couple of case studies, including one on Tony Nicklinson as well.

So in this lesson, we are going to be talking about end of life care.

And we're going to be talking about views on death as well.

And for many people, this is going to be a sensitive topic.

So if that applies to you, then you may want to do the rest of this lesson with a trusted adult nearby who can support you.

And for this lesson, you're going to need a pen or pencil, a different colour pen or pencil to make corrections and additions to your work.

And you're going to be some paper as well.

So if you don't have those things, then now is your opportunity to run and get them.

You can pause the video and also just make sure that you're in a good working environment as well.

You've got no music or distractions or anything like that.

So we're going to start by recapping some key concepts that we've been looking at so far in this unit.

We're going to look at sanctity of life, utilitarianism, situation ethics, and quality of life.

So I'm going to recap them really quickly.

And then you're going to answer some questions.

So the sanctity of life is a religious view.

That human life is special, it's sacred, because it is created by God.

And in both Islam and Christianity, we've got these accounts of Adam being intimately created by God.

That he's special and different from the rest of creation.

One difference is that in Christianity, we've got the idea of humans being made in God's image and that being part of what makes them special.

One of the key things to remember in sanctity of life is that as all human life is special, then that means that Christians or Muslims who follow sanctity life would say that it is never okay to take a person's life.

Secondly, utilitarianism, so utilitarianism is a nonreligious approach to ethics.

And it says that the right action is that which brings about the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people.

And this is carried out through a whole of society, not just in small groups.

So therefore that's going to be a guide for many humanists about what's going to be the right thing to do.

And it's very consequences based.

Based on what is going to be the overall outcome here.

What's going to make someone happy.

And one of the challenges of that, is we don't always know what's going to make us happy, or we can't always be certain that the consequences will be what we expect.

So that's one of the challenges of utilitarianism.

Next is situation ethics.

So this is based on the Christian teaching to love your neighbour as yourself.

And uses love towards others as a guidance.

And says that in each situation, you should do whatever is the most loving thing.

One of the challenges of situation ethics is that what people consider to be loving is very subjective.

And should you follow what a biblical view on what loving is? Or should you follow an Islamic view on what being loving is or a nonreligious view? It's going to be very difficult to decide always, what is considered loving.

And finally, we need to consider the idea of quality of life.

So if someone's considered to have a good quality of life, if they report having a good quality of life, you might say that they're fit and healthy, that they have everything they need.

You could say that they have got a good community around them, with a family or friends they're well cared for.

And you could argue that dignity is part of this.

Dignity is actually quite a difficult word to sum up sometimes, but it's essentially a bit like having self-respect.

So for example, if you are clean, if you are dressed, and your being polite in company, you might say that someone's dignified.

If someone's really filthy, if they're not dressed properly, if maybe they're wearing something that's a bit revealing, you might say it's undignified.

And I don't even actually mean revealing in a provocative way.

I'm more mean in a well, in an undignified way.

Maybe because someone just doesn't have the clothes they need to cover themselves up.

Quality of life is going to be a really important aspect of this lesson.

As it's going to be a reason why many people request euthanasia.

Because they consider themselves to have a low quality of life.

So we're going to pause, and you're going to answer some questions on these key concepts to show that you understand them.

So we're going to start by looking at what euthanasia is.

So the word euthanasia comes from the term good death.

And it's the idea of somebody having a peaceful death.

One that's not undignified, and that doesn't have a lot of pain and suffering.

And euthanasia in our understanding today is when somebody requests for a doctor to end their life, to prevent further suffering.

And this is to do with controlling how they die so that they could receive drugs that put them, send them to sleep, rather than maybe dying in a much more drawn out painful way.

There are different types of euthanasia, and there's a few distinctions we need to make.

So firstly, we've got the idea of voluntary euthanasia.

So this is when a person asks the doctor to end their life, as they do not wish to live anymore.

This is their own choice.

So this might be that somebody is either unable to end their lives themselves, perhaps if they're paralysed, or it might be that they want to have a good pain-free death.

And so they might request those drugs from a doctor.

Passive euthanasia, this is when doctors stopped providing treatment or do something that is intended to quicken the natural process of dying.

So this is not active euthanasia.

It's not someone being given an injection or a drug that will kill them.

But for example, if somebody is in a coma and are unlikely to wake up, the doctors might say, well there's no brain activity anymore.

This person's not going to live any longer.

So they might turn off the life support machines.

So that's stopping providing treatment.

Or somebody who's had a long-term illness and gone through lots and lots of treatments, they might say, actually, I want to stop my treatment now and just die because they might say that, all of that treatment is causing a lot of suffering to them.

And that is legal in our country.

And that is called passive euthanasia.

Next is assisted suicide.

So this is when someone helps somebody to kill themselves.

So that might be, for example, I've said, if someone's paralysed, somebody else might go and get them the medication that they need so that the paralysed person could take it, they might help them take it.

But it's essentially helping somebody to do that themselves.

And this distinction is really important in terms of the law that we're going to look at in a moment.

And then finally, we've got this term double effect.

So double effect is when drugs intended to make a person more comfortable, speed up their death as a side effect.

So it's a little bit like passive euthanasia in some ways.

Lots of people as they reach end of life, and especially if they've got a terminal illness, they might be in a huge amount of pain.

And therefore doctors might prescribe them pain medication and allow them to just have as much as they want.

And that's because the doctors might say, well this person's going to die in the next week or two anyway.

And rather than that person just be suffering all the time, but live longer, they might say, well, that person can have as much of that painkillers as they want.

And that might speed up their death, but it might mean that they're much more comfortable in their last few days.

Double effect is also legal in the UK.

Because their aim is not to kill the person, their aim is to help them to be more comfortable and to deal with pain.

So in the UK active euthanasia is illegal in all its forms. So that includes assisted suicide.

And assisted suicide carries a prison sentence of up to 14 years.

Euthanasia is legal in Belgium.

And in Switzerland's actually assisted suicide is legal.

So that means that in Switzerland, it is legal for a doctor to prescribe somebody medication, which if they were to take it, it would end their lives.

Whereas in the UK, if the doctor did that, they would go to prison.

The states of Montana and Oregon, and some other countries also allow euthanasia.

And in these different countries, you'll see different rules.

So for example, in some countries that it's legal for children, those people who are under 18 to receive euthanasia, if they have a terminal illness or a life limiting disability.

And that's a very controversial topic for many people about whether or not children can make those decisions.

Or it might be that in some places, some patients who have depression have requested euthanasia and being granted it, whereas in other countries that would be not allowed at all.

So in different places, there's going to be slightly different rules and regulations.

In the UK, it is illegal.

What does happen sometimes is that people who live in the UK, they might go abroad to somewhere like Switzerland so that they can receive euthanasia there.

One of the challenges of that is, that if any member of their family or a friend helps that person go to Switzerland to receive euthanasia, then that family member could be arrested for assisted suicide.

So that is one of the challenges when it comes to the idea of going abroad for euthanasia.

So we can see here, the law has got some very serious repercussions for any assisted suicide or euthanasia that happens within the UK.

So we're going to pause for a moment.

So you can answer some questions on the law on euthanasia in the UK.

So before we look at different religious responses about whether or not euthanasia should be allowed, we're going to look at some of the challenges that you face when deciding whether or not euthanasia is ethical.

So it might seem quite simple on the surface, if somebody who has a long-term illness requested to die, but actually it's quite complicated.

And if you were then to legalise it across the whole country, then lots of other issues can crop up.

So firstly, we've got the idea here that emotions can change.

So somebody can feel very certain that they want to die and then change their minds later.

So this is definitely the case when it comes to mental health.

Those people might feel very low for a couple of years, but then later on feel much, much better.

Also, when people have a life changing incident, let's say they become disabled.

Then they, again might feel very, very low for a period of time, but they might then adjust to that new lifestyle and actually be very happy and content.

But that low point could last a couple of years.

And in that time, some people might consider euthanasia.

So emotions can change.

And some people would argue that emotions are not the best thing on which we should make these sorts of decisions.

I think that in our culture, we do have to make important decisions based on our emotions, don't we? But many people would argue that our emotions should not be the key thing we look to when making life and death decisions.

They might argue, we should look at religious law, or look at the law of a country for example.

Many religious groups would say that it is not our right to decide when and how someone dies but God's.

So in Islam is the idea of predestination or that when someone dies, or the idea of the sanctity of life that we've already looked at as well.

Which is at bottom of my list there.

Other challenges, so euthanasia is open to abuse.

So sadly most abuse happens within families and within people or by people that are known to the victim.

And there's a very real concern that many people who have a terminal illness or a, or who are living with a disability or living with a long-term illness, they might feel a duty to die.

So this might be that because their family or friends have to look after them all the time.

They might look at their family and think, well I don't want to be a burden to my family.

And therefore they might feel like there's an expectation that they have euthanasia.

There's actually two ideas going on there.

There is the idea of abuse that a family could be persuading somebody to have euthanasia.

Or it might be that the family is more than happy to look after that person, but that the person themselves feels a sense of guilt that their family have to care for them.

And so duty to die is going to be a big issue because some people might then undergo euthanasia or request it when it's not really what they want.

Another view is that there or another challenge is that there are effective alternatives such as hospices.

So we're going to look at hospices a bit more in this lesson.

But essentially your hospice is, it's a little bit like a hospital in a way.

And in that there'll be doctors and nurses there who can care for patients.

But it's focused on end of life care.

So it's not like a hospital in that people go to hospitals to get cured, but it's more that people go when they're dying to be made more comfortable.

And we'll look at a few other things that will happen in hospices later on in this lesson.

And at the moment most hospices in UK are charity run.

So this is going to be one of the challenges as well.

That at the moment, they're not something that is part of their NHS for many many people.

So some would argue that hospices need more funding and that then they would be an alternative for more people, rather than euthanasia.

There could be a breakthrough in treatments for an illness.

So this is the last one.

Many people would argue that if you're choosing when you die through euthanasia, then actually if a person holds on longer than it might be that a new treatment is discovered that could really improve their quality of life or really extends their life.

And this is just a real unknown as it, isn't it? You would never know for sure whether or not that would happen.

So we're going to pause so that you can write down a couple of these challenges.

And I want you to think about why do you think someone might request euthanasia? We've touched on a few reasons so far in this lesson.

See if you can think of any more, and then we're going to look at a couple of case studies.

So you might have had some similar answers to me when thinking about why a person might request euthanasia.

I've got four general points and these are not going to be the only ones.

But they might cover quite a few reasons.

So firstly, it might be that someone's been diagnosed with a terminal illness and that that illness might cause them to really have a lot of suffering towards the end.

So they might want to decide for themselves at which point their life would end.

It could be that they've been diagnosed with a degenerative disease of the brain.

And we're going to look at an example.

So that could be something like dementia, or Alzheimer's.

And the focus of this one, that's slightly different to some of the others is that the person would lose their cognitive ability.

They would no longer be able to make those decisions themselves.

Whereas if someone's diagnosed with something like motor neuron disease, they might become paralysed, but they're still able to think clearly and hopefully communicate that with technology that we have today and things like that.

And so some people who are diagnosed with Alzheimer's or dementia or something like that, they don't want to become a sort of a shadow of themselves.

They don't want to lose that ability to make that decision.

So they might say, well, before it gets to that point where I can no longer consent, then they might say that they'd rather die before then.

And they are living with a disability or an illness that causes them pain or indignity.

So obviously pain is going to lower someone's quality of life because of the day-to-day suffering involved.

And also lots of pain medication might make people feel quite fuzzy.

And so they might feel like they're not able to fully enjoy life, even when their pain is relieved.

Or it causes them indignity.

So we've sort of touched on this briefly and we're going to look at this as an example in a moment.

That if someone's paralysed, they're not going to be able to feed themselves or to dress themselves, or to wash themselves or get up and go to the toilet.

I imagine that many of you, if you've, you know, been doing that for yourself for the last 10, however many years, that's how old you are.

And then you probably wouldn't be very pleased if your parent or even a carer had to come in and put you in the bath, or take you to the toilet or something like that.

And so many people do not like that indignity of being cared for in that way.

And therefore they might want to have euthanasia because they feel that that lowers their quality of life.

And we will look at examples, to assess that.

And I just say, as well, there are lots and lots of people who are cared for in that way.

And they are very happy and they believe they have a good quality of life as well.

And this is why I talked about this being very subjective.

In this lesson, we're focusing on people who request euthanasia.

But I don't want you to assume that every person who's paralysed thinks they have a poor quality of life.

Cause that's just not going to be the case.

And the last one I've got on here.

And like I said before, this is a controversial one because in some countries this is allowed and in others it isn't.

A person may, might request euthanasia because they have depression.

And again, this is something that can change because people might have a about of depression and then have a couple of years where they feel much better.

And it might be that they battle with that for a period of time.

But many people would argue that this is something that shouldn't be addressed with euthanasia.

And they would be very concerned about somebody making that choice when they're not in a very good place.

Where they're not in a place to make such a final decision about them, about their lives.

So that last, one is quite a controversial one, but it is a reason why some people might request euthanasia.

So we're going to look at a couple of examples.

So firstly, we're going to look at an example of Terry Pratchett.

So Terry was the author of the "Discworld" series.

And in 2007, when he was 59, he was diagnosed with a type of early onset Alzheimer's disease.

And actually one of the effects of this disease meant that he wasn't able to read and write.

So obviously it affected his livelihood, to a huge extent.

He had to dictate his books to people rather than being able to write it himself.

Now, Terry Pratchett was known for being a humanist.

That he was an atheist, he didn't believe in God.

And whilst he had Alzheimer's, once he'd been diagnosed, he actually took part in a documentary called choosing to die.

Which also featured two men who had motor neuron disease.

So he was very open about the fact that he wished to undergo euthanasia before his Alzheimer's got too bad.

But as he lived in the UK, he didn't have euthanasia he died of natural causes.

The next example that we are looking at is Tony Nicklinson.

So Tony really campaigned to be allowed to die.

And he took his campaign to the high court.

So Terry Pratchett did lots of documentaries and talks openly about it.

Lots of discussion about it.

Tony really campaigned for his right to die.

So he had a stroke in 2005 that left him paralysed.

So all he was able to do was communicate by using a lettercard.

Which, and the person he would speak to would track his eye movements.

So they could see which letters he meant.

So he had to spell out everything he wanted to say.

He was completely fine in terms of his cognitive ability, but he was essentially trapped in his body.

He campaigned to have his life ended by doctor due to the daily indignities that he faced.

So he really felt that his quality of life was poor because of the fact that he had to have carers come in, he had to have people take him to the toilet and clean him, and wash him.

And there's an interview in which he's asked, you know, when he looked at his daughters, at his family, did he ever question whether or not he wanted euthanasia? And he said, no, he was 100% certain that he wanted to die.

He lost his appeal to the high court and decided to die by refusing food.

And soon after he made this decision, he actually died of pneumonia.

So the case of Tony Nicklinson was a very powerful one in terms of his campaign for euthanasia.

But he wasn't able to get it legalised in the UK.

And one of the arguments was from the high court that if he, if it was legalised for him, if he was allowed to have euthanasia, it would have set a precedent that would mean that other people would be able to have it as well.

And they did not want to make it legal in the UK.

Just to be aware of something to look out occasionally for in the news, there are occasional discussions in the houses of parliament about legalising euthanasia.

So it could happen in the UK over the coming years.

So do keep an eye on the news because this will be a huge change in the UK.

So we're going to pause so you can answer a couple of questions about these case studies.

It's really helpful for you to be able to refer to specific real life examples in your answers when you're writing about these topics.

So we're going to look at religious views now.

We're going to start with Roman Catholicism and the Church of England as well.

So both these groups are against euthanasia due to the sanctity of life.

So we've got two quotations here, "let us make man in our image" and "do not commit murder." And in 2005, Doctor Rowan Williams, who at the time was the archbishop of Canterbury, the main bishop in the Church of England that was badly described.

The queen is considered the head of the Church of England.

But the archbishop of Canterbury is like the main leader.

Still badly explained.

So Robin Williams at the time said that life was not ours to keep or throw away as we choose.

So he argued here that it is well, in God's decision rather than our decision when our life ends.

And this sort of article that they wrote or the response they wrote also talks about the idea of emotions playing a huge role in making decisions.

And that that's not necessarily the best way to make these choices.

So we'll pause for a seconds so answer questions on sanctity of life and euthanasia.

So in Islam, the majority of Muslims are also going to be against euthanasia as well.

And for so many reasons in particular, this is going to be due to the belief that Allah has predestined a person's time of death.

And we've got this quotation here.

"It is not possible for one to die, "except by permission of Allah at a decree determined." So this is saying that, it's not possible to die or a life shouldn't be taken, except when it's by Allah's permission at a given time.

So the Quran teaches that life should be valued and therefore euthanasia is haram, which means forbidden.

And it's also not one of the circumstances in which Islam allows life to be taken.

Which would be the death penalty and some instances of abortion.

So Islam is going to be mostly against euthanasia.

I would even want to be stronger than that, but there's always going to be some groups who will say that they think that euthanasia should be legalised.

But I think the vast majority of Muslims are going to be against it.

Again, I'm going to give you a moment to pause and answer some questions on the Islamic view.

So next going to look at situation ethics.

So this is the ethical theory from Christianity to do the most loving thing.

So some Christians may accept euthanasia, saying that it is loving to help someone end their suffering in a dignified way based on teaching, love your neighbour as yourself.

I think one of the main things to be aware of with situation ethics is that lots of Christians will actually take issue with it because they'll say that if you only focus on the idea of loving your neighbour, then you're actually cutting out a lot of other parts of Christianity, such as those verses that support sanctity of life.

They would say that, yes, we should treat people with love, but the idea of love is very subjective, isn't it? What somebody might consider loving might be very different to what someone else thinks.

So just be careful of situation ethics.

It is a Christian ethical theory.

It is very useful for lots of these topics.

Will all Christians agree with it? No, all right.

So just be aware of that.

So again, I'll give you a moment to pause and write down your answers on situation ethics.

And then we will look at a humanism.

So many humanists would argue that euthanasia should be legalised, as they would say it's a person's right to end their life when they wish.

And again, this is linked to the belief that humans are evolved creatures.

They're not made in the image of God.

They don't have lives that are sacred.

But actually, the meaning and value of human life comes from humans themselves.

And therefore, if a person doesn't want to continue with their life because they are undergoing suffering, then many humanists would argue that it is their right to have euthanasia.

And this might fit with utilitarianism, which says, do the greatest good for the greatest number of people.

Utilitarianism is not just about increasing happiness, but also about reducing suffering.

So some humanists would say, why make people suffer? And you know, live for a long time with these illnesses that cause them a lot of pain, when they don't want to continue living, when you could allow them euthanasia and reduce the amount suffering.

However, some humanists may acknowledge the challenges of ensuring that euthanasia is the right decision for a person.

And they might argue, that it shouldn't be legalised or that it should only be used in very rare cases.

And just linking to some of those challenges about duty to die that people might feel.

So the reality is what we've seen historically with abortion and euthanasia is when they've been legalised, the view has been that they'd only be used in rare cases, but actually, the numbers of people making use of abortion or euthanasia has gone up a lot.

So some people might argue that even though they might say it's moral in some rare cases to allow euthanasia, they might be very concerned about some of the challenges that are brought to when it's made legal.

So again, just being really aware that it's a very complicated issue.

So we'll pause for a second.

So you can ask some questions on euthanasia, and then we're just going to learn a bit more about hospices and how many people believe they could be a good alternative to euthanasia.

Hospices are focused on providing end of life care usually.

And many hospices will also provide respite.

So that might be either for people who are caring for somebody who has a disability or long-term illness or something like that.

So it might be that someone who is a carer can go to the hospice and stay there for a couple of days, have counselling, have a massage or something like that, so that they can have respite.

Or somebody who has a long-term illness might go there and stay.

Again, so those people caring for them can have a rest or just so that they can be somewhere different for awhile.

So it does provide respite, which might not necessarily be for people who are dying, but for people who are living with a long-term illness or disability.

But there is also a focus on end of life care.

Which is also called palliative care.

And there'll be doctors and nurses at hospice providing treatment and providing medication and things like that for their patients.

One of the main purposes of hospices is to ensure people have comfort and dignity.

And this is done in lots of different ways.

So hospices will provide end of life counselling, as well as activities to improve a person's quality of life.

And we're going to look at some of those in more detail and see how they can improve someone's quality of life.

So just imagine for a moment what it would be like for a person who's very unwell, who's unable to really get out of their chair, maybe they're bed bound, and they can't really do much for themselves.

Life might be quite boring for them.

They might be in pain quite a lot of time, over the time, and they might need people to come in and care for them.

So how would you improve that person's quality of life? There's several different ways.

And actually a huge part of what might help somebody to feel more dignified and what might improve their quality of life might be things that, might seem a bit trivial to us.

Say for example, if you were in hospital all the time, you might be in a hospital gown and you might not really have your hair brushed, you might get washed occasionally, but that might be it.

And you might not really feel like yourself.

And that actually can really lower somebody's sense of self, their quality of life.

They might not feel very good if they don't feel like themselves.

So one of the things that might happen at hospices is that a hairdresser will come in and do somebody's hair, or a manicurist might come in and do someone's nails and give them a pedicure, to make them feel more like themselves.

Because they're spending so much time in bed that they might feel better for getting a bit more dressed up as it were wearing their own clothes, looking how they normally look.

There'll be lots of crafts and things like that.

Because we tend to feel better when we've achieved something.

So having a good quality of life often involves working at something and producing something.

So there might be lots of crafts, exercise classes as well, obviously within reason, depending on a person's illness or disability or their strengths.

But again, getting moving helps people to feel much better.

Hospices often have beautiful gardens.

And this is because being outside and connecting with nature really improves people's quality of life.

And it really helps to deal with depression and things like that.

And linked to that actually, you sometimes get animals could be brought into hospices because research shows that spending time with an animal makes us feel better.

So again, that's something that's going to improve people's quality of life.

There'll be counselling because facing death is quite a scary thing, isn't it? And therefore they will spend time with the person who's dying, but also with their friends and family, to help them come to terms with their death.

And to help them to reflect on their life and all of the good things that they've done.

There's a huge numbers of things that happen in hospices, the focus being on making sure those people are happy, that they're enjoying their day-to-day life, that they're getting the medical care they need and that they're comfortable.

And so many people would argue that with hospice care, euthanasia wouldn't be necessary.

Because they would say that hospice care can ensure that somebody has a high quality of life till the very, very end.

So we'll pause for a moment.

So you can answer a couple of questions on hospices.

Well-done for all your hard work in this lesson.

We have tackled a really difficult topic in this lesson.

And as you've seen, there are lots and lots of different views and probably no easy answers.

One of the key things to be aware of, is what those different views are, make sure that you can link them to those religious beliefs.

And I'd say actually, try not to paint it with a broad brush, try not to be too simplistic with it.

If you're recognising in your answers that you understand the difficulties, when it comes to deciding whether or not euthanasia is ethical, then it's going to show that you really understand the issues involved.

So again, well-done all of your hard work.

You can now do the exit quiz.