Buddhist Attitudes to Euthanasia - Buddhist Ethics and Dialogues - Issues of Human Life and Death

 Author: Ruth Wood

Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide

Introducing the issues of Buddhism, euthanasia and suicide: Buddhists are not unanimous in their view of euthanasia, and the teachings of the Buddha don't explicitly deal with it. Most Buddhists (like almost everyone else) are against involuntary euthanasia (e.g. someone who is injured in a way being killed on a battlefield by their own soldiers to put them out of their misery). Their position on voluntary euthanasia is less clear.

 Arguments against Euthanasia in Buddhism:

States of mind: The most common position is that voluntary euthanasia is wrong, because it demonstrates that one's mind is in a bad state and that one has allowed physical suffering to cause mental suffering. Meditation and the proper use of pain killing drugs should enable a person to attain a state where they are not in mental pain, and so no longer contemplate euthanasia or suicide. Buddhists might also argue that helping to end someone's life is likely to put the helper into a bad mental state, and this too should be avoided.

Avoiding harm: Buddhism places great stress on non-harm, and on avoiding the ending of life. The reference is to life - any life - so the intentional ending of life seems against Buddhist teaching and voluntary euthanasia should be forbidden. Certain codes of Buddhist monastic law explicitly forbid it. Lay-people do not have a code of Buddhist law, so the strongest that can be said of a lay person who takes part in euthanasia is that they have made an error of judgement.

Karma:  Buddhists regard death as a transition. The deceased person will be reborn to a new life, whose quality will be the result of their karma. This produces two problems. We don't know what the next life is going to be like. If the next life is going to be even worse than the life that the sick person is presently enduring it would clearly be wrong on a utilitarian basis to permit euthanasia, as that shortens the present bad state of affairs in favour of an even worse one. The second problem is that shortening life interferes with the working out of karma, and alters the karmic balance resulting from the shortened life.

Arguments that could support Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide

The Example of the Buddha: The Buddha himself showed tolerance of suicide by monks in two cases. The Japanese Buddhist tradition includes many stories of suicide by monks, and suicide was used as a political weapon by Buddhist monks during the Vietnam war. But these were monks, and that makes a difference. In Buddhism, the way life ends has a profound impact on the way the new life will begin. So a person's state of mind at the time of death is important - their thoughts should be selfless and enlightened, free of anger, hate or fear. This suggests that suicide (and so euthanasia) is only approved for people who have achieved enlightenment and that the rest of us should avoid it.

Reducing Dukkha: One could argue that Buddhism is founded on the principle that suffering is wrong, and therefore should be prevented. This belief that Buddhists should overcome suffering could be so extended to justify the ending of a life that is spent in agony, or with such a low quality that the person afflicted does not want to live anymore. Because Buddhism is about one's personal experience, journey and growth over many lifetimes, it could be concluded that ending the suffering of someone in the form of euthanasia or assisted suicide could be permitted, if the person asking to be killed has come to this decision wisely, over a period of reflection on the consequences. If the person asking to be killed is entering into this (for example, arranging to go to Dignitas in Switzerland) with eyes open and a full understanding of the action and the potential karmic consequences, Buddhists would argue that one has the right to choose what happens and how their current life is ended. The act of euthanasia could be seen as an act of mercy, a Kusala (selfless) action, putting the needs of the person asking for death above one's own desire for them to continue to live - this is particularly true if the person asking for death is a loved one who does not want to continue living with a terrible and incurable health condition. 

Students - Now Try This:

Using this post, and the post on comparing Christian and Secular Ethics with Buddhism on issues of Human Life and Death, create your own for and against summary of the Buddhist attitudes to Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide. 

Make sure you plan how you would conclude an exam answer on the Buddhist attitude to Euthanasia - is it always wrong, or does it depend on the situation?