Issues in Population and Bioethics | Page 8

to prevent it. It condemns individual
suicidal entrepreneurship. Suicide, according to Thomas Aquinas, is
unnatural. It harms the community and violates God's property rights.
In Judeo-Christian tradition, God is the owner of all souls. The soul is
on deposit with us. The very right to use it, for however short a period,
is a divine gift. Suicide, therefore, amounts to an abuse of God's
possession. Blackstone, the venerable codifier of British Law,
concurred. The state, according to him, has a right to prevent and to
punish suicide and attempted suicide. Suicide is self-murder, he wrote,
and, therefore, a grave felony. In certain paternalistic countries, this
still is the case.
The Right to Have One's Life Terminated
The right to have one's life terminated at will (euthanasia), is subject to
social, ethical, and legal strictures. In some countries - such as the
Netherlands - it is legal (and socially acceptable) to have one's life
terminated with the help of third parties given a sufficient deterioration
in the quality of life and given the imminence of death. One has to be
of sound mind and will one's death knowingly, intentionally, repeatedly,

and forcefully.
II. Issues in the Calculus of Rights
The Hierarchy of Rights
The right to life supersedes - in Western moral and legal systems - all
other rights. It overrules the right to one's body, to comfort, to the
avoidance of pain, or to ownership of property. Given such lack of
equivocation, the amount of dilemmas and controversies surrounding
the right to life is, therefore, surprising.
When there is a clash between equally potent rights - for instance, the
conflicting rights to life of two people - we can decide among them
randomly (by flipping a coin, or casting dice). Alternatively, we can
add and subtract rights in a somewhat macabre arithmetic.
Thus, if the continued life of an embryo or a fetus threatens the
mother's life - that is, assuming, controversially, that both of them have
an equal right to life - we can decide to kill the fetus. By adding to the
mother's right to life her right to her own body we outweigh the fetus'
right to life.
The Difference between Killing and Letting Die
Counterintuitively, there is a moral gulf between killing (taking a life)
and letting die (not saving a life). The right not to be killed is
undisputed. There is no right to have one's own life saved. Where there
is a right - and only where there is one - there is an obligation. Thus,
while there is an obligation not to kill - there is no obligation to save a
life.
Killing the Innocent
The life of a Victim (V) is sometimes threatened by the continued
existence of an innocent person (IP), a person who cannot be held
guilty of V's ultimate death even though he caused it. IP is not guilty of
dispatching V because he hasn't intended to kill V, nor was he aware
that V will die due to his actions or continued existence.
Again, it boils down to ghastly arithmetic. We definitely should kill IP
to prevent V's death if IP is going to die anyway - and shortly. The
remaining life of V, if saved, should exceed the remaining life of IP, if
not killed. If these conditions are not met, the rights of IP and V should
be weighted and calculated to yield a decision (See "Abortion and the
Sanctity of Human Life" by Baruch A. Brody).
Utilitarianism - a form of crass moral calculus - calls for the

maximization of utility (life, happiness, pleasure). The lives, happiness,
or pleasure of the many outweigh the life, happiness, or pleasure of the
few. If by killing IP we save the lives of two or more people and there
is no other way to save their lives - it is morally permissible.
But surely V has right to self defense, regardless of any moral calculus
of rights? Not so. Taking another's life to save one's own is rarely
justified, though such behavior cannot be condemned. Here we have
the flip side of the confusion we opened with: understandable and
perhaps inevitable behavior (self defense) is mistaken for a moral right.
If I were V, I would kill IP unhesitatingly. Moreover, I would have the
understanding and sympathy of everyone. But this does not mean that I
had a right to kill IP.
Which brings us to September 11.
Collateral Damage
What should prevail: the imperative to spare the lives of innocent
civilians - or the need to safeguard the lives of fighter pilots? Precision
bombing puts such pilots at great risk. Avoiding this risk usually results
in civilian casualties ("collateral damage").
This moral dilemma is often "solved" by applying - explicitly or
implicitly - the principle of "over-riding affiliation". We