As Bernard Keane pointed out in yesterday’s Crikey, the decision by Free TV Australia to ban an advertisement by voluntary euthanasia group Exit International raises serious questions about the role of the industry body in ruling what can and cannot go to air.
However, I dont think that the Exit International advertisement falls into the same category as previously-rejected advertisements involving campaigns for East Timor and the environment. Those campaigns are clear-cut free speech issues. The Exit International advertisement is directed at government and calls for legislative changes but of course, politicians would not be the only viewers.
There is now widespread recognition of the need for responsible media practice in reporting suicide, because of the potential impact on emotionally vulnerable viewers. That’s not censorship — that’s responsible reporting and representation. Many would agree with Exit International’s belief that the desire of terminally ill patients to end their torment is not irrational, suicidal thinking. But it could touch a nerve in others as well.
I am not a mental health professional, but I can envisage that the “life’s all about choices” script for the Exit International advertisement could rationalise suicidal thoughts by viewers with treatable mental illnesses. The lines repeating that the patient didn’t choose to undergo all the torments of a terminal illness could easily mutate into “I didn’t choose to lose my job”…”I didn’t choose to be dumped by my spouse”…”I didn’t choose loneliness and isolation” and lead to the same conclusion: “I’ve made my final choice”. It must be possible to produce an advertisement lobbying for Exit International’s policies that does not risk normalising suicide more generally.
Life’s all about choices — not really. I didn’t choose to have multiple sclerosis. No-one does. And some of those who have it thrust upon them want the euthanasia choice. But I’m not convinced that euthanasia really is a choice. Not in a society that disempowers the old, the sick and the disabled.
I hate the thought of what may lie ahead. Of lying on a hospital bed (again) being asked to rate the pain on a scale of one to ten. I never know how to answer how bad is ten, anyway? I live in dread of saying ten and then finding that like the amps in Spinal Tap, this goes to eleven.
And I’m vain. I’m not just afraid of what I may undergo, but also of what I may become. I don’t want to be dependent, unproductive, a burden. I want to be strong, an achiever, low-maintenance to be around. Exit International and I are both products of a culture that privileges youth, health and bodily perfection, and recoils from bodies that are diseased, aged, or otherwise imperfect. This is not a culture in which euthanasia is an autonomous choice. And Exit International’s literature feeds prejudices that we ought to fight to overcome.
It is a shame that the people who are anti-euthanasia have started using the suicides in what seem to be normal healthy people as an excuse to avoid discussion or public debate. Actually I correct myself it is disgusting.
While I respect that this issue presents difficulties for the writer in approaching from an objective viewpoint, there are a couple of realities that need to be observed. One is that not talking about euthanasia means it is never discussed by the wider community with any sensible view to an outcome. The result is then that it remains a dinner party conversation amongst those with no immediate stake in the debate, that is suddenly left alone when in the presence of someone with an aged suffering parent. The moral conversation is then claimed by those who, like our writer, may have personal reasons for justifying the status quo, or for advancing a personally-felt agenda.
It is a regular part of the democratic process to use the media to put an agenda in the spotlight to initiate public conversation – whether it be the rights of the Timorese, carbon emissions or euthanasia. Of course it’s an appeal to government: this is done by creating a groundswell that the political pollsters can not ignore, thereby making it a subject for public discussion. That Ms Cruickshank does not agree that it ought to be policy does not mean she is correct, or in any kind of majority.
With regard to the fraught concept of vulnerability and suicide, it is a little disingenuous to suggest that a conversation about euthanasia in the face of debilitating illness at the end of life is in any but the most tenuous way connected to youth or middle-age suicide.
There is, in any case, a wealth of historical material to conclude that most societies have neither embraced nor denied suicide as an evil in itself. It became a ‘sin’ of Christian societies only in about the 6th century CE, when the cost to the Church of martydom was becoming economically prohibitive: Yes, early Christian societies paid the families of martyrs to the cause in the same manner that certain Muslim sects do now. After that it was not unusual to hang a failed suicide for the sin of the attempt.
Romans, Greeks and Egyptians all accepted suicide as a choice and a right, as did the Japanese. Even European officers in the 19thC were expected to use a pistol when faced with gambling debts. The Jews were happy if it was Samson, though claim otherwise to condemn it (mind you, the Jews were happy for Abraham to sacrifice his son, and most of the early books are a litany of slaughter). While Judas is the most famous suicide in the New Testament, the question of Jesus ‘sacrificing’ himself is unremarked in the discussion of suicide. Buddhists, Confucianists and Shintoists all accept suicide as euthanasia.
Suicide in our own culture is its own special subject, divorced from euthanasia, and more appropriately aligned with mental health. This is a progression of thought that is appropriate to the sophistication of our culture, removed as it is from the rule of Churches and Emperors. Self-government is a work in progress by its very definition. It relies on open discussion amongst all participants, not the gate-keeping of a few.
Where, exactly, do we place that slippery line which at present is danced around with the use of ‘do not resuscitate’?
This article discusses euthanasia and suicide extensively. Does it thereby encourage suicide any less than another piece which presents the contrary view on euthanasia?
Surely there is a responsible way of presenting views on this issue, even in advertisements. Suppressing the public expression of views lessens the prospect of a shared understanding and agreement on the issue.
“There is now widespread recognition of the need for responsible media practice in reporting suicide, because of the potential impact on emotionally vulnerable viewers. That’s not censorship — that’s responsible reporting and representation.”
I’m sorry but the imposition of a restriction on speech (even if it is only to ensure ‘responsible reporting and representation’) is censorship. Editorial decisions by private organisations are self-censorship (in that they are not mandated by law) but they still amount to censorship.
Your article raises two different grounds to justify this censorship, however, there is a difference between censoring an ad because it may ‘normalise suicide’ and because it may ‘touch a nerve in others’. On which basis do you justify this censorship? The former is a public harm justification but the latter is nothing more than refusing to engage in a legitimate debate because someone’s feelings may be hurt. Memories of death and passing hurt, regardless of the cause of the death, that doesn’t mean we should not talk about the topic. Furthermore your first ground confuses voluntary, medicalised and regulated euthanasia with suicide – which is hardly likely to be any of those things. And I question whether suicide can ever become ‘normalised’, if by normalised you mean unremarkable. Loss and grief seem to be hardwired emotions and a sudden death is always remarkable.
Grief and loss would be present following the death of someone who chose euthanasia, but perhaps the healing process (I hesitate to use the term ‘closure’) might be a little easier.
Suicide is a serious public health problem and there should be a public discussion about it. But it is not what is meant by ‘voluntary euthanasia’.
Ironically, if you wanted to justify running the ad, which may cause pain to some members of the community but which is necessary to stimulate a worthwhile public debate, you can rely on the principle of ‘Double Effect’, which underpins current quasi-legal euthanasia.
Tim, my heart skipped a beat when you came perilously close to using ‘closure’.
There are several thought provoking and valid points made in the above posts. When world population eventually peaks and/or when there are significant global famines this subject will be void. It’s a luxury that we can still debate it.