In the name of freedom?

In the name of freedom?

Bioethics researcher Marisa Casini
sees human rights as being used in humans
against humans themselves. Will we betray
the equal dignity of every human being?

By Marisa Casini

A law has been proposed in Belgium that would terminate the life of the mentally ill. The declared intentions of its promoters appear quite noble: to give in to what the sick themselves ask for in their situations, removing themselves as burdens to society.

Unfortunately these inclinations are now spreading throughout the world. Those suffering and crying out for relief are many. We talked to Marina Casini, a researcher at Sacred Heart Catholic University in Rome, whose expertise is bioethics, particularly its legal aspects. Her father is Carlo Casini, president of the Italian Movement for Life.

The U.N. International Year of Human Rights is 2009-2010. Given its present context, what can you say about human rights?
We are experiencing an intense anthropological crisis. Everyone speaks of human rights — they multiply them, classify them and denounce violations. Now many are so confused as to even speak of human rights for animals! The fundamental question is, therefore, anthropological. Human rights need to be reinforced and clarified so they are not used against human beings themselves.

How does this involve bioethics?
The sick and the elderly, as well as the unborn, are the most susceptible and run the risk of being marginalized — a kind of discrimination authorized by law. In this sense, reflections on bioethics offer an extraordinary occasion to refocus human rights on our being human.
The first chapter of my research deals precisely with the relationship between laws, human rights and bioethics. We also speak of bio-rights.

Another chapter of your research is about life’s beginning.
Yes, it focuses particularly on abortion. Presently, there is an intense discussion about the law legalizing abortion. Now there is a growing use of chemical abortion, morning-after pills and such, which are used with much more superficiality. I am also researching civil disobedience and artificial insemination. We always keep the anthropological dimension at the center of our research: What or who is this tiny human being we are dealing with or trying to reproduce in test tubes?

You also address the end of life in your research.
The themes and challenges before us are manifold: euthanasia, biological testament [legal documents dictating patient preferences in the event of incapacitating illness], therapeutic obstinacy, the proportionality of care, informed consent and the rejection of care, artificial hydration and nutrition (above all in connection with that devastating disability that is the so-called vegetative state), the physician-patient relationship, treatments to alleviate and so on.

Death and its limits are assured, but so much more so is human dignity. In the logic of euthanasia and biological testament we even find the disguised idea that under certain conditions human dignity is diminished, or even eliminated. As a result, there are requests to end human lives legally.

What do you think about the freedom to dispose of one’s own life?
The supporters of euthanasia say that a healthy, handsome, intelligent young man, perhaps even a father of a family still caring for his children, should not have the legally guaranteed freedom to kill himself, or avail himself of the help of another person. A person who forcefully prevents such a suicide is praised.

There are two different value systems at work here. Why should we help a person who is old, sick and seriously disabled to their death? In the name of freedom, we would be betraying the equal dignity of every human being. Society’s attitude should not be different for those who find themselves in conditions of particular fragility.

Perhaps it’s a little bit like what happens in the cells of our bodies: to stay alive they need to continually receive signals from other cells, signals that say, “please stay alive,” or “we want you to live.”
That’s how it is, in a certain sense. However, we need to realize that such a process of awakening will take a long time. Just think how much effort was used to abolish slavery, which was still legal up to the 1800s, at least in the U.S. and other countries. The historical evolution of this kind of change in mentality takes a long time.

They say that mentally handicapped persons, if they could understand their situation, would tell you that they would rather die.
Actually, I think that if they could understand and have people who love them close by, they would not want to die. We should not only consider the quality of life, but also the quality of relationships. This holds true for everybody, above all for those people who are so fragile as to have to depend only on the love and acceptance of others.

Just think of the homeless, the immigrants, the unemployed, those just conceived, the sick, the elderly who are left alone, the disabled and the dying. Each of us has to take responsibility for these people. A culture of life begins with such an attitude.

Let’s talk about mothers who have disabled children and who raise them with love and much work.
Silent, humble, heroic mothers (and their families) who welcome a disabled child say to us that no human life is useless. Rather, the more they show affection and love for a handicapped child, the more their life acquires meaning.

What do you do if the patient rejects love and care?
The matter is complex and delicate. In cases where the patient refuses care, the juridical principle of the inviolability of human life, as well as therapeutic help, which considers the autonomy of the physician, would both have to be applied to overcome the patient’s rejections whenever possible. One certainly cannot resort to violence! Then in certain cases, we may have to surrender to death and raise the white flag.

On the other hand, if the patient’s wishes were the only criterion for medical action, then we are saying that human life can be tampered with. It is like saying, “You have the opportunity available to end it all under your own conditions, for after all, you are only a burden to society.” This attitude shows how individual choices can be influenced by the perception of one’s social environment.

Given a person’s misery, illness, disability and maximum fragility, the indifference of others and their perception that the sick person is but a burden pushes the weak person even more to escape their suffering. In essence, society is stretching a red carpet between that person and death’s door. Euthanasia is an example of this.

What sick or mentally ill patients need is to be loved and accepted, not because they are useful to somebody else, nor because they are beautiful, amiable or receptive.

The choice is not between secular and religious people. It is between the vision of the red carpet — through which society’s laws determine whether you remain or go away (as it hypocritically tells you that you are free to choose!) — or that of the white flag, the symbol through which society and the physician, in particular, surrender to the inevitable, yet without abdicating a person’s will, recognizing the equal dignity of every human being.