Two signs of the times this week. Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt comes out in favour of assisted suicide; and a seriously ill baby, “Baby OT”, dies after the High Court orders an end to its assisted breathing. Behind both developments, an underlying intuition that death is preferable to a painful life.

I worry where this utilitarian thinking might lead us. “Death” and “preferable” just don’t sit well together for me. A human being has unconditional value. Avoiding pain is good for a human being, but, as such, its value is conditional. We ought to alleviate pain wherever we can because we value the lives of human beings.

In cases of assisted suicide and withdrawal of life support without consent, the pain-prevention imperative apparently takes priority. That makes me uneasy. The assertion by the BMA today that, in the Baby OT case, death was “in the best interests of the child” strikes me as somehow horrifying.

Filed under: ideas, jonathanbirch, religion on March 21st, 2009