Euthanasia: Beyond the Court’s Pay Grade to Rule on
In 1997, the Philippine Senate considered in passing legalized euthanasia. Unexpectedly, there was a heavy push back from the Roman Catholic Church so it was just decked into thin air. Euthanasia is the practice of ending the life of a patient to limit the patient’s suffering. Since the procedure is illegal in the Philippines, the only available solution for patients with severe terminal illness is palliative care such as sedation. With palliative sedation, it is not considered as euthanasia because the intent of the said medical procedure is to lessen the pain of the patient and allow natural death to occur. The key factor in euthanasia is the direct intention of the medical personnel to end the life of the patient. It is illogical to charge medical personnels administering palliative care when the direct intention is to ease the pain and suffering of the patient and them dying is out of their control (either way the patient will die anyway so why not give the dignity of them exiting the world peacefully and less painful as possible?).
As a consequence, patients and families are often reminded that their loved ones died in pain and suffering rather than a peaceful one. This is disheartening because it is better to die with dignity. Even if it is argued that palliative care is available, it is just meant to prolong the artificial living state of the terminally ill patients. Hence, it would cost families large sum of debts which could have been used to sustain the life of the survived families.
Those are the reason why euthanasia is decriminalized or legalized in some countries. To prevent unnecessary pains and sufferings and large sum of debts. Some will argue that life is sacred and this will be prone to abuse. These are my two responses: to live in this world includes human dignity rather than existing for the sake of living. Moreover, there are safeguards which have high threshold in order for euthanasia to be administered so there are possibilities that people might not get it at all.
Moving back to its legalization, there were legislative pushbacks. So, this begs the question can there be other ways to pursue the legalization or decriminalization of euthanasia and if so what are the recourse.
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First, we need to establish whether there is a constitutional right to choose death. This is a slight problem because the Philippine Constiution human dignity and human life; hence, the probability that legalization or decriminalization of euthanasia is somewhat unfavorable because the consensus whether the constitutional right to die is protected under the Philippine Constitution. Basically, there are two approaches to this, a textualist interpretation and a liberal interpretation to the preservation of life. With a textualist approach, judges apply law on the basis of the average reasoanble person’s idea of the text. This means that the judges would interpret life as a matter of existing rather than living with dignity. The chances that the legalization of euthanasia would pass is improbable because the constitution would only protect life as a matter of human existence and not its quality because such interpretation is silent. Therefore, the interpretation is to preserve life at all cost. So even if you are in a vegitative state, the Philippine Constitution has no duty at all to ensure that your life is in a self-realizing element because it is silent on such qualification to life.
In contrast with a liberal approach, the right to die could be interpreted as a constellation on the right to privacy, the right to human dignity, economic rights and the right to self-actualization in a sense that I could make a legacy by leaving money to the patient’s love ones. So, most likely a right to die is established. Since it is a fundamental rights then it triggers strict scrutiny of substantive due process law. So, it has to ask whether there is a legitimate reason to restrict the right and the means pursued are proportionate to the aim. In this case, the usual suspect to the question on restricting euthanasia is sanctity of life or the prevention of the abuse of procurement of such act. Most likely, it will fly because there is a possibility to pursue happiness and self-actualization even if with limited guarantee of life time and despite some pain and suffering. Also, proportionality cannot fly at the end of the day because the existence of palliative care that could in effect cause natural death. In effect, euthanasia bans might be held constitutional.
Now, if euthanasia bans are considered constitutional does that mean it could not be legalized? I respond in the negative. First, the Courts only allows government to restrict such act when there is a valid justification. This does not mean automatically mean that legalization is now barred. How? Any challenges that attacks euthanasia legalization, proponents can invoke the political question doctrine. This legal theory posits Courts could not hear the question of the constitutionality of such cases when the executive or the legislative branch could have a better competence in handling those issues. Remember, euthanasia, despite controversial to some, is somewhat neutral to begin with since it could be good or bad depending on the side of the aisle you’re talking to.
To better explain why legalization is possible without the Court’s interference, imagine the Philippine Congress is emboldened to pass euthanasia legalization. Then those against it would challenge this legislation in Courts. In this case, petitioners or euthanasia activists could invoke the political question doctrine wherein the Courts could not hear the question of the constitutionality of such cases because the executive or the legislative branch could have a better competence in handling those issues. First, it is fundamentally flawed for non-medical professional judges to determine whether euthanasia is applicable to certain patients or not. Moreover, that is beyond their pay grade. Their task is only to check whether the executive branch or legislative branch exceeded in its acts not prescribe a laundry list of policy issue that may interfere with medical studies or the competent political persons who decide what’s best for the majority. Moreover, if euthanasia is always in the province of the Court, there will always be floodgates of litigations wherein one should ask the Court to always grant euthanasia or not. I believe that is faulty especially if the judges are pro-life. Hence, it opens the judges in question to ethics issues or violations.
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Euthanasia is a complicated legal topic to dissect. It caused pushbacks from lawmakers to push such policies because it is unpopular. In fact, even if euthanasia were judicially ruled Constitutional in the Philippine Supreme Court, there will be legal battles on how to implement it such as conscientous objections from the medical personnels or other frivilous cases just to undercut it. The point is, it gives the Courts so much power to decide whether one should have euthanasia or not which violates separation of powers. Now, the best recourse for euthanasia to stand up on its own legs is that Congress pass either its decriminalization or legalization and invoke the political question doctrine in case it were challenged at Courts.
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DISCLAIMER: Though the author is legally educated, please keep in mind that this article is for informational purposes and should not be taken as legal advice. This article is informed by my legal studies and research.
