Suffering is a deeply subjective issue that questions the
structure and theoretical objectivity of the legal system. The law seeks to classify
and to draw defined boundaries around concepts as intangible as suffering, and
it inevitably falters. It is here that literature can enter the stage, not as
an antagonist to the law but as a companion, fluent in ambiguity where law
demands clarity. If one considers how the law approaches the problem of
suffering in the context of assisted dying, it appears that the courts mainly
question how much suffering is too much, or what threshold must be crossed
before the law permits a person to seek release. Judges are obviously
constrained by precedent, language, and the fear of misstep, and the tools at
their disposal, such as medical reports, philosophical arguments, and the
cautious wisdom of case law, are far from straightforward. Courts must seek
evidence, rationality, proof, but suffering is none of these things. It is a
shadow, known only to the ones who endure it. Literature, in contrast, asks no
such questions of thresholds or proofs. It does not measure suffering, but it
rather evokes it. Kazuo Ishiguro’s
Never Let Me Go, for instance, explores suffering not as acute pain but as a slow and
inevitable decline. The cloned protagonists, bred for their organs, move
toward their “completion” with a quiet resignation. Their suffering is bound
up with questions of agency, dignity, and the value of a life constrained by
rules they had no hand in creating. This portrayal is as much about legality
as it is about empathy: suffering is not a problem to be solved, but simply a
condition to be witnessed.
I have argued multiple times that the
courtroom is a stage for storytelling. In cases of assisted dying, the stories
obviously hinge on suffering. A claimant’s testimony of anguish or witness’s
account of deterioration are not so different from the monologues of a tragic
character in a novel. Where literature excels, however, is in giving suffering
a voice beyond the procedural. The law must balance suffering against
competing interests like the sanctity of life, the potential for coercion, the
slippery slope to abuse. Literature is unburdened by such constraints and can
imagine suffering in its fullness. If one looks at Albert Camus’
The Myth of Sisyphus, suffering is stripped down to its existential core: the relentless
absurdity of life and the struggle to find meaning in a world that offers
none. Suffering in Camus is universal and inherent in the human condition. His
metaphor of Sisyphus, condemned to roll a boulder uphill for eternity only to
watch it tumble back down, captures the futility many feel when confronted
with prolonged or terminal suffering. In the context of assisted dying,
Sisyphus’ plight becomes more than a philosophical abstraction, as it mirrors
the agony of individuals who endure pain with no hope of reprieve. Camus,
however, also dares the reader to imagine Sisyphus happy, finding agency and
defiance even in the midst of torment. This act of rebellion against suffering
and absurdity - choosing how to face it, even when the ultimate outcome is
beyond one’s control - is profoundly resonant with the arguments for assisted
dying. It is not about escaping suffering so much as reclaiming autonomy and
asserting a measure of control over a process that seems cruelly indifferent
to human dignity. Camus’ insistence on individual agency has deep implications
for legal narratives around assisted dying. Suffering is not a failure to be
corrected, but a reality to be acknowledged; and the value of a life is not
negated by the choice to end it when suffering becomes unbearable. That choice
can itself be an act of meaning, a final assertion of humanity in the face of
the absurd.
From this standpoint, the debate on the laws on assisted
dying appears woefully inadequate. Courts and legislators attempt to reduce
suffering to quantifiable terms, but - if I may repeat myself - suffering is
inherently subjective, and its contours are to be defined solely by the
individual. No two Sisyphean boulders are alike, and the law’s failure to
account for this individuality risks alienating those it seeks to protect. I
believe this leads to seeing what the law cannot say: the language of statutes
and case-law is necessarily abstract, as it must apply to the many, not the
few. Literature, on the other hand, looks at the particular. A dying man in a
hospice bed, a woman whose mind has slipped into the fog of dementia, a family
torn between love and exhaustion: these are not abstractions, but rather
characters insisting that their pain be acknowledged. Perhaps the law might
learn something from this insistence: not that it should abandon its caution
and abstract character, but that it might recognise the limits of its own
vocabulary. For in the silence where legal language falters, literature
speaks, and points out that suffering is first a human question and only
secondarily a legal one; and it is in the human that the most profound truths
about assisted dying may be found.