 
by A. Alan Borovoy
"What are we coming to in Canada?" asks my fellow columnist Michael Bliss as he excoriates "the popular outpouring of support for Robert Latimer", the Saskatchewan farmer convicted for the mercy killing of his severely disabled 12-year-old daughter. Bliss commends the 1960s anti-abortionists for their admonition "that narrowing the definition of life for a human fetus would lead to disregarding the sanctity of life in other situations". According to Bliss, this development "has indeed been a slippery slope - first abortion, then the advocacy of euthanasia, and now the attempt to defend mercy killing". There are critical flaws here. On the Latimer case, for example, those urging mercy are not necessarily defending what Latimer did or advocating its legalization. They simply believe that severe punishment is unconscionable. Moreover, Bliss talks as though the sanctity of life is the only worthy value in such conflict situations. But shouldn't compassionate people also care about relieving unendurable pain? Why assume that the quantity of life must always prevail over its quality? Those who support choice in abortion, some permissible euthanasia, and mercy for Robert Latimer have not necessarily repudiated the sanctity of life. Indeed, most such people are likely to be strong believers in it. But they also believe strongly in other values - such as the relief of suffering. Undoubtedly, Bliss also believes in the worthiness of relieving pain. Thus, the real question is what to do when such worthy values collide. The troubling aspect of Bliss' column is its apparent assumption that, when such conflicts arise, the sanctity of life must always trump other values. But why should this be so? There is a hint that perhaps God is behind Bliss' absolutization of life. At some point, he notes "that we no longer cry out in the name of God". Many people, of course, continue to rely on God to resolve such conflicts. There are several compelling arguments - pro and con - on these vexing issues. But the invocation of God is one of the least persuasive approaches. The problem is how to determine what God wants. Usually, such an exercise relies upon a revelation of God's will. But, in a society of many beliefs, whom or what can we trust as a genuine recipient of a Divine revelation? On abortions, for example, there are competing views - based on various perceptions of the Divine will - as to what is permissible under what circumstances. There are no principles in science or logic for authenticating revelation claims. We have only our finite and subjective intuitions. On what basis can we trust them to make judgments of such magnitude? In any event, whose intuition should a pluralistic society accept as binding? The issue here is not the validity of religious beliefs but the application of such beliefs to public policy. In a pluralistic society of colliding values, reliance on God is unwarrantedly dangerous. We have no way of divining the Divine Will without reposing unwarranted faith in our own powers of discernment or in the human recipients of claimed revelations. Either way, the exercise is too much for finite mortals. Thus, a secular society like ours cannot invoke God to resolve such conflicts. We have no reasonable alternative to the perpetual exercise of balancing competing values and weighing competing risks - all without absolutes. When we approach gut-wrenching issues like abortion, euthanasia, and the Latimer case, we should focus less on the mysteries of the Divine Will and more on the limitations of state power. To adopt a liberal position on any of these issues does not necessarily mean that we endorse the behaviour at issue. It may simply mean that, as democrats, we shrink from using state coercion to resolve fundamental conflicts about which reasonable people differ so greatly.
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