Live and Let Die
Michel Houellebecq suggests that agitating for medical assistance in dying infantilizes those who seek relief when their suffering becomes intolerable [“The European Way to Die,” Revision, February]. In making this argument, he contends that suffering one’s death throes without alleviation—no matter how debilitating or agonizing the condition—has always been considered noble. This is simply untrue. Seneca, who recommends finding “the proper time to slip the cable,” is one of many ancient philosophers who argued that the wise human seeks not a “natural” death but a good one. Valerius Maximus writes of early inhabitants of present-day Marseilles:
A poison compounded of hemlock is under public guard in that community, which is given to one who has shown reasons to the Six Hundred, as their senate is called, why death is desirable for him. The enquiry is conducted with firmness tempered by benevolence, not suffering the subject to leave life rashly but providing swift means of death to one who rationally desires a way out.
Medically assisted death has been practiced for as long as there have been doctors. It was simply performed clandestinely. When my stepfather died of leukemia, his hospice nurse told us exactly how many pills not to take. Treating this kind of assistance as an open secret leads to a lack of transparency and appropriate regulation, while exposing care workers to unnecessary legal risks.
But when appropriate laws and procedures are in place, people may choose to experience death without medication because they know help is available should they need it—a fact Houellebecq acknowledges. Having the option of medical assistance in dying may also stop people from taking matters into their own hands.
The bizarre “go it alone” attitude Houellebecq expresses is part of what keeps death largely excised from public life in Western society. We need to be more open-minded, not more dogmatic, about the inevitable, and sometimes excruciatingly painful, process of death. Doctors are there with us at the beginning, helping us enter life; they should also be there at the end, helping us leave.
Clancy Martin
Kansas City, Mo.
In 2014, my daughter was being treated by a gastroenterologist for irritable bowel syndrome. She spent six months in pain, frequently vomiting and experiencing diarrhea. One day, I took her to the emergency room where a physician ordered an immediate MRI. The doctor then informed us she had Stage IV cancer of the liver and pancreas. She began treatment, during which she suffered paralysis from nerve block. We then arranged hospice care. She was on a steady morphine drip but still in considerable pain. Eventually, she requested a voluntary death. The hospice refused. She lived for four more months and died on Christmas Eve. I regret that I didn’t take her to a European country.
Karen Lynn
Plant City, Fla.
A Matter of Forum
During your recent forum on liberalism [“Is Liberalism Worth Saving?,” Forum, February], Deirdre McCloskey repeatedly claimed that poor people shouldn’t complain about their material circumstances because they are better off in absolute terms than the poor of previous generations. Though the other panelists did rebut her comments, they did so belatedly and with not nearly enough force.
McCloskey’s insistence that people should evaluate situations in transhistorical terms rather than protest the inequities of their own time and place proceeds from a wrongheaded conception of freedom that excises us from our contexts. McCloskey wants us to be more like those abstractions of people beloved by free marketeers: perfectly rational, perfectly informed, perfectly free to choose. She wants us to move to the big city when our traditional rural lifestyle is no longer economically competitive. But when you separate people from their contexts, you do not set them free—you erase them. Each of us is fundamentally entwined with the world and with those around us. This interdependence defines our lives and gives them meaning. We are not free; nor should we want to be.
Jonathan Allmaier
Bronx, N.Y.
Besides Patrick Deneen’s reliably imbecilic misrepresentation of my work at National Review, I especially enjoyed his advice that we must open our hearts and concern ourselves with the prospects of those without Ivy League educations. As someone who didn’t graduate from college, I always look to former Princeton professors for such insights.
Kevin D. Williamson
Dallas, Tex.
Going for Gold
Hillary Angelo’s article on the rush to build solar farms in the West partially misrepresents the interests of local residents [“Boomtown,” Letter from Nevada, January]. They were portrayed as environmentalists opposed to solar energy because it would destroy the desert environment; in fact, half a dozen gold mine contractors have proposed sites in the area, a move supported by current residents. This would be far more toxic to the desert than solar farms. Although I agree with Angelo’s conclusion that solar power should be concentrated in cities, the situation in Beatty is far more complex than was reported.
Naomi Rachel
Boulder, Colo.
Hillary Angelo responds:
As Naomi Rachel points out, and as I acknowledge in my piece, many Beatty residents support gold mining. When I asked them why, residents said that gold mining is part of the region’s economic and cultural history, and appears to be less of a threat to the tourist economy they hope to build around the town’s mining past.
“Boomtown” focuses on solar energy not because it’s the most destructive land use, but because it’s a new one: an apparently revolutionary technology that embodies hopes for a transformative response to climate change. Critics of renewable energy development, such as those in Beatty, tend to be dismissed as climate deniers or NIMBYs putting property rights before the public good. My article aimed to show that opponents are in fact making a progressive critique of current structures. I didn’t want to reproduce false choices between environmental and social justice. Instead, I’d hoped to push the conversation toward bigger questions about trajectories of change.
