You know, the quality on which the British pride themselves, pragmatism, has its limits. There’s a case for abstract moral thinking and it’s especially true when it comes to the fraught moral question of euthanasia, assisted suicide, right-to-die, whatever. And essentially the distinction is between actively killing someone, or allowing them to die – of doing something, as opposed to not doing something, of commission rather than omission. The little ditty by Arthur Hugh Clough, ‘thou shalt not kill but needst not strive/ officiously to keep alive’ sort of sums it up.
The latest right-to-die case comes before the court today, that of Noel Conway, a retired lecturer who has Motor Neuron Disease and is legitimately terrified at the prospect of his condition deteriorating further and further; he’s written movingly about it in the Evening Standard today. Most of us would feel exactly the same.
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