Utopia and Euthanasia

I was very intrigued by Thomas More’s ideas of his Utopia. I was particularly drawn to his views (or the Utopian views) of euthanasia. Like the footnotes point out with the root words of Utopia (no-place) and Raphael Hythloday (an archangel / nonsense-peddler), I feel it is important to know a word’s origin. I feel it helps to understand where a word comes from and how it was originally meant before society placed it into a new context. For example, euthanasia has a bad connotation to it because we associate it with death and loss, typically that of a pet: “I had to have my dog euthanized (or put down).” Euthanasia has now become a “bad” word because it is associated with our own bad feelings that we associate with it. Euthanasia’s Greek roots (funny how a lot of More’s vocabulary is rooted in Greek) as found on medterms.com state that “The word "euthanasia" comes straight out of the Greek—"eu", goodly or well + "thanatos" death = the good death—and for 18th-century writers in England that was what euthanasia meant, a "good" death, a welcome way to depart quietly and well from life.” I feel this is exactly what More was trying to relay to the readers, not that the Utopians wanted to go around killing people or convincing people they’d be better off dead, but providing a way to end suffering and escape a painful and drawn out death.

I have witnessed a lot of death and dying and I appreciate the sentiment More is trying to convey. More states the Utopians “tell [the dying person that] he should not let the disease prey on him any longer, but now that life is simply torture, he should not hesitate to die but should rely on hope for something better” (71). The “something better” is likely that person’s perception of the afterlife aka heaven. My Great Grandfather passed away at 88-years-old. He was put on Hospice because he was terminally ill and dying and he knew it as well as everyone did. He prayed every night and day for God to take him Home. He eventually couldn’t eat or drink anymore and because he was on Hospice they didn’t allow IVs or feeding tubes. His body eventually shut down. It was hard for me to watch. I didn’t understand why they deprived him of food and water. But now I do. It was to move along his progression to the other side. He was suffering, crying out to die every day but unable to obtain the release he sought. He prayed for an end to his life on Earth so he could move on to something better, somewhere where he could be pain free. It upsets me now that we don’t provide the “good death” (euthanasia) to those terminally ill. I don’t think it is right to force someone to suffer longer because the idea of something we don’t fully understand makes us too uncomfortable aka dying.

We extend this gratitude easily to our beloved pets. Two years ago I lost my golden retriever to lymphoma. His lymph nodes on his neck swelled to the size of mangos and labored his breathing. He couldn't keep any food down. He could barely walk. His quality of life was gone. He was suffering. I took him to the vet and held him close as they injected him with medication that made him fall asleep. I held him as he died. It was the best I could offer him at that point, the good death, and I prayed he was taken off to something better.

If we do this for our pets, whom we cherish (sometimes more than people), why don’t we offer the same treatment to friends and family?

My sweet Brodie Bruce. He was diagnosed with lymphoma when he was almost 4yrs old. With chemo treatment he was able to stay with me for an additional 11 months before he passed. He was 2 months shy of his 5th birthday.