Death rights advocates can only win supporters by calling the act of killing something else.

Euphemisms: The Modus Operandi

 of Death Rights Advocates

by Adam J. MacLeod

The principle that human life is inviolable has been the keystone of medical ethics since Hippocrates, but it suffered setbacks in Anglo-American jurisprudence during the twentieth century. A range of movements for the right to kill oneself or other human beings--such as eugenics, abortion rights, and assisted suicide--undermined the inviolability principle.

Yet the principle is making a comeback. This is due in part to scholars who are rehabilitating it and defending it from attacks. But perhaps this is also due to the principle's widespread intuitive appeal. To most people, it just makes sense that we should not kill ourselves and each other.

That intuition's strength might also explain why advocates for the right to kill nearly always use euphemisms. If we all know or sense that an intentional act of killing is intrinsically evil, then these advocates can only persuade others by calling killing something else.

Indeed, in this respect, the assisted-suicide movement imitates tactics (and some strategies) of the eugenics movement of the Progressive era.

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