What does a caring society look like? Reporting from a fraught frontier.
For our reporters, approaching the global debate over whether to allow assisted dying meant having empathy for those on different sides, and respectfully exploring people’s choices.
It’s the kind of story that demands particular care – toward sources, toward readers, and for writers, toward themselves. Assisted dying is a complex topic in all of its evolving global variations.
For the Monitor’s Dominique Soguel, who contributed from Europe to a report also fed by staff writers Sara Miller Llana in Canada and Whitney Eulich in Latin America, taking a Monitor approach called for a clear values framing.
“We found that compassion was the common denominator,” Dominique says on the Monitor’s “Why We Wrote This” podcast, “both in terms of how people who support euthanasia view the issue and those who oppose it view the issue.”
That meant having the same level of empathy for both sides, she says, and fairly laying out the intellectual arguments for two different views.
“We’re not judging the choices [people have] made, and we don’t want our readers to walk away with a sense of judgment,” Dominique says. “We really just want to position everyone to understand why people made those choices.”
Episode transcript
Samantha Laine Perfas: Assisted dying, or euthanasia, is a controversial concept, to say the least. This practice, where allowed, has usually been used by older people diagnosed with terminal diseases and [facing] end-of-life scenarios. The fiercest debates rage over whether minors or people with mental illnesses should be entitled to it as well. For some, allowing euthanasia is about dignifying the individual’s right to choose whether or not to keep living. For others, it’s a step too far to formally sanction the act of helping someone end their life. As countries around the world wrestle with whether or not to legalize this practice. The conversation often turns to something universal: the role of compassion.
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Laine Perfas: Welcome to “Why We Wrote This.” I’m today’s host, Samantha Laine Perfas.
A team of Monitor reporters, including Sara Miller Llana in Canada, Whitney Eulich in Colombia, and Dominique Soguel in Switzerland recently reported a story that looks at the controversial practice of assisted dying. Today, Dominique joins me to talk a little bit about what it was like reporting it. Welcome, Dominique.
Dominique Soguel: Thank you, Sam.
Laine Perfas: So this story was reported by multiple Monitor journalists from around the world. How did it come to be?
Soguel: It came to be because the number of jurisdictions that allow some form of assistance in dying is growing. Recently, Spain legalized euthanasia and Portugal appears to be at the doorstep of doing so. So I started looking at the debates there and seeing where the debates were unfolding in other parts of the world. And talking to Sara, it came to my attention that there were very fierce debates about this issue also in Canada. And then we reached out to Whitney, because Colombia had actually allowed euthanasia for quite some time, although only now it was being utilized. It’s a bit of an outlier nation for South America. So that’s how it became a global, Monitor story.
But despite the cultural differences, I think the core issues are very similar. We found that compassion was the common denominator, both in terms of how people who support euthanasia view the issue and those who oppose it view the issue. So questions of life and death and what makes a compassionate society are debated in very similar terms.
Laine Perfas: Could you give an example of differences in, let’s say, an Asian country versus a country that’s more coming from an Anglo-Saxon type of cultural background?
Soguel: So active euthanasia is not allowed in Asia, Africa, or much of the Middle East for cultural and religious reasons. So in some traditions, there is an understanding that if you are facing terminal diagnosis, you shall suffer through it. And that’s OK. You have community around you to carry you through that. Whereas in Western, wealthier nations, the individual’s well-being and comfort at the end of life can be interpreted as a reason not to continue living when their quality of life has been compromised by a terminal disease or a psychiatric disorder in some cases.
Laine Perfas: Were there any particular sources who had stories that stuck with you?
Soguel: Yes. So there was a gentleman named Federico Redondo. And in his case, he was the one who alerted his mother that she would be eligible to request euthanasia in Colombia. And that was a choice that I think initially he regretted, because he was not foreseeing such an outcome for his mother. But it is a choice that, in the end, he came to understand as he saw his mother’s condition take a bigger toll on her.
Laine Perfas: What were some of the challenges reporting a story like this?
Soguel: I think the challenges are twofold. You know, one, it’s [an] intellectual debate that has powerful arguments on both sides. It was very important for us to have the same level of empathy for both sides. If we showed an intellectual argument for euthanasia, we also had the counter argument presented.
And I think in this story, the demand for compassion was the greatest. So much thought went not only into the interviews, but also just the request for the interviews, because we didn’t want to hurt anyone. As journalists, we want to get our facts right. We might go back to the source multiple times to get the right narrative details. And that act of repetition can be very difficult for sources who’ve experienced a traumatic experience. It’s very, very important to be transparent from the outset about what the goal is, why you’re engaging with them in this very complex process and long-winded process. And it’s very important to do so with their consent and obviously to show compassion.
Laine Perfas: With a story like this, how do you, as the reporters, take care of yourselves?
Soguel: Sometimes it’s just a matter of taking time to process before even starting to write for a larger audience. And often it’s just a matter of talking to colleagues or family and friends.
Laine Perfas: Is there anything else about this story that stuck with you or that you think would be helpful for readers to understand?
Soguel: When we approach our sources, we’re not judging the choices they’ve made, and we don’t want our readers to walk away with a sense of judgment. We really just want to position everyone to understand why people made those choices.
A lot of the debates around euthanasia revolve around how the person dies. Is it assisted suicide? Is it physician-assisted death? Who has access to it, under what circumstances, in what way. But as one source put it quite nicely, assisted dying is “less about death than it is about how we want to live.”
Laine Perfas: Thank you so much, Dominique, for sharing.
Soguel: Thank you.
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Laine Perfas: Thanks for listening. To find a transcript and our show notes, which include links to some of Dominique’s work, go to CSmonitor.com/WhyWeWroteThis. This episode was hosted by me, Samantha Laine Perfas, co-produced with Jingnan Peng, edited by Clay Collins. Alyssa Britton and Tim Malone were our engineers, with original music by Noel Flatt. Produced by the Christian Science Monitor. Copyright 2023.
