Abstract
This paper investigates connections between procreative ethics and the ethics of suicide and euthanasia. Regarding euthanasia/assisted suicide, we might think it too demanding to ask parents to help euthanize their terminally ill, suffering child, but had the parents not procreated, their child wouldn’t need euthanizing. If you need help killing yourself, shouldn’t your parents, who got you into life in the first place—without your consent—help you out of it? Yet knowing that your parents would help you kill yourself may increase your desire to die: a conundrum. Regarding suicide, the fact that we are forced into life should bolster the right to suicide, even for reasons that others might find wanting. The ways in which we are brought into life have moral implications for the ways in which we are entitled to get out of it.
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Notes
- 1.
I am not going to consider the arguments for and against suicide, assisted suicide, and euthanasia. Instead, I will explore the questions regarding the connections between procreative responsibility and suicide, assisted suicide, and euthanasia. For purposes of this discussion, I assume that these ways of ending life are sometimes justified and permissible. I am also not going to consider the possibility that children owe their parents help with ending life, out of gratitude toward their parents for having created or raised them (or for any other reason). In my view, the obligation children may have to their parents is more complex and controversial than the obligations parents have toward their children. I leave filial obligations for others to investigate.
- 2.
Assuming, of course, that their parents are still alive. Given that terminal illnesses usually occur later in life, often this will not be the case. I am interested here in situations where it is the case that a parent of the person in need of euthanasia is still alive.
- 3.
David Boonin has suggested that this reasoning may apply to those who breed a dog and raise it as their pet.
- 4.
- 5.
I owe this case to Justin Weinberg.
- 6.
In re Quinlan (1976).
- 7.
I say “not contrary” to the child’s interests rather than “in the child’s interests” because I don’t think that anyone has an interest in being created. That’s why paternalism alone will not justify procreativity, in my view. My view is that parents procreate to further their own interests in becoming parents but they are permitted to do so despite not being able to obtain their child's consent because the child does not have consent rights, among other reasons.
- 8.
Ken Baldwin, as quoted by Friend (2003).
- 9.
The fact that we did not ask to live does not, by itself, tell us that we have no duties of any sort to continue to live. It’s possible that some duties are involuntary. My point here, however, is that the fact that we did not ask to live counts in favor of our being able to stop living, should we so desire.
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Acknowledgments
My thanks to Cory Aragon, David Boonin, Michael Cholbi, Jukka Varelius, and the audience at the 2014 Rocky Mountain Ethics Congress for helpful comments on this paper.
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Weinberg, R. (2015). “You Got Me Into This…”: Procreative Responsibility and Its Implications for Suicide and Euthanasia. In: Cholbi, M., Varelius, J. (eds) New Directions in the Ethics of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia. International Library of Ethics, Law, and the New Medicine, vol 64. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-22050-5_14
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