'', by
Jacques-Louis David (1787), depicting Socrates preparing to drink
hemlock, following his conviction for corrupting the youth of
Athens Euthanasia was practiced in
Ancient Greece and
Rome: for example,
hemlock was employed as a means of hastening death on the island of
Kea, a technique also employed in
Massalia. Euthanasia, in the sense of the deliberate hastening of a person's death, was supported by
Socrates,
Plato and
Seneca the Elder in the ancient world, although
Hippocrates appears to have
spoken against the practice, writing "I will not prescribe a deadly drug to please someone, nor give advice that may cause his death" (noting there is some debate in the literature about whether or not this was intended to encompass euthanasia). The concept of euthanasia in the sense of alleviating the process of death goes back to the medical historian
Karl Friedrich Heinrich Marx, who drew on Bacon's philosophical ideas. According to Marx, a doctor had a moral duty to ease the suffering of death through encouragement, support and mitigation using medication. Such an "alleviation of death" reflected the contemporary
zeitgeist, but was brought into the medical canon of responsibility for the first time by Marx. Marx also stressed the distinction of the theological care of the soul of sick people from the physical care and medical treatment by doctors. Euthanasia in its modern sense has always been strongly opposed in the
Christian tradition.
Thomas Aquinas opposed both and argued that the practice of euthanasia contradicted our natural human instincts of survival, as did Francois Ranchin (1565–1641), a French physician and professor of medicine, and Michael Boudewijns (1601–1681), a physician and teacher. Other voices argued for euthanasia, such as
John Donne in 1624, and euthanasia continued to be practised. In 1678, the publication of Caspar Questel's
De pulvinari morientibus non-subtrahend, ("
On the pillow of which the dying should not be deprived"), initiated debate on the topic. Questel described various customs which were employed at the time to hasten the death of the dying, (including the sudden removal of a pillow, which was believed to accelerate death), and argued against their use, as doing so was "against the laws of God and Nature".
Beginnings of the contemporary euthanasia debate In the mid-1800s, the use of
morphine to treat "the pains of death" emerged, with
John Warren recommending its use in 1848. A similar use of
chloroform was revealed by Joseph Bullar in 1866. However, in neither case was it recommended that the use should be to hasten death. In 1870 Samuel Williams, a schoolteacher, initiated the contemporary euthanasia debate through a speech given at the Birmingham Speculative Club in England, which was subsequently published in a one-off publication entitled
Essays of the Birmingham Speculative Club, the collected works of a number of members of an amateur philosophical society. From there it proved to be influential, and other writers came out in support of such views: Lionel Tollemache wrote in favour of euthanasia, as did
Annie Besant, the essayist and reformer who later became involved with the
National Secular Society, considering it a duty to society to "die voluntarily and painlessly" when one reaches the point of becoming a 'burden'.
Popular Science analyzed the issue in May 1873, assessing both sides of the argument. Kemp notes that at the time, medical doctors did not participate in the discussion; it was "essentially a philosophical enterprise ... tied inextricably to a number of objections to the Christian doctrine of the sanctity of human life".
Robert Ingersoll argued for euthanasia, stating in 1894 that where someone is suffering from a terminal illness, such as terminal cancer, they should have a right to end their pain through suicide.
Felix Adler offered a similar approach, although, unlike Ingersoll, Adler did not reject religion. In fact, he argued from an
Ethical Culture framework. In 1891, Adler argued that those suffering from overwhelming pain should have the right to commit suicide, and, furthermore, that it should be permissible for a doctor to assist – thus making Adler the first "prominent American" to argue for suicide in cases where people were suffering from chronic illness. Both Ingersoll and Adler argued for voluntary euthanasia of adults suffering from terminal ailments. The first attempt to legalise euthanasia took place in the United States, when
Henry Hunt introduced legislation into the
General Assembly of
Ohio in 1906. Hunt did so at the behest of
Anna Sophina Hall, a wealthy heiress who was a major figure in the euthanasia movement during the early 20th century in the United States. Hall had watched her mother die after an extended battle with
liver cancer, and had dedicated herself to ensuring that others would not have to endure the same suffering. Towards this end she engaged in an extensive letter writing campaign, recruited
Lurana Sheldon and
Maud Ballington Booth, and organised a debate on euthanasia at the annual meeting of the
American Humane Association in 1905 – described by
Jacob Appel as the first significant public debate on the topic in the 20th century. Although this event was kept a secret for over 50 years, the death of George V coincided with proposed legislation in the
House of Lords to legalise euthanasia.
Nazi Euthanasia Program , where over 18,000 people were killed A 24 July 1939 killing of a severely disabled infant in
Nazi Germany was described in a
BBC "Genocide Under the Nazis Timeline" as the first "state-sponsored euthanasia".
The Telegraph noted that the killing of the disabled infant—whose name was
Gerhard Kretschmar, born blind, with missing limbs, subject to convulsions, and reportedly "an idiot"— provided "the rationale for a secret Nazi decree that led to 'mercy killings' of almost 300,000 mentally and physically handicapped people". While Kretchmar's killing received parental consent, most of the 5,000 to 8,000 children killed afterwards were forcibly taken from their parents. Its code name
Aktion T4 is derived from 4, a street address of the Chancellery department which recruited and paid personnel associated with the program. In modern terms, the use of "euthanasia" in the context of Aktion T4 is seen to be a
euphemism to disguise a program of
genocide, in which people were killed on the grounds of "disabilities, religious beliefs, and discordant individual values". Compared to the discussions of euthanasia that emerged post-war, the Nazi program may have been worded in terms that appear similar to the modern use of "euthanasia", but there was no "mercy" and the patients were not necessarily terminally ill. The Right Reverend Robert E. McCormick stated that: The petition brought tensions between the American Euthanasia Society and the Catholic Church to a head that contributed to a climate of
anti-Catholic sentiment generally, regarding issues such as birth control, eugenics, and population control. However, the petition did not result in any legal changes. ==Debate==