OF EUPHEMISMS AND EUTHANASIA: THE LANGUAGE GAMES OF THE NAZI DOCTORS AND SOME IMPLICATIONS FOR THE MODERN EUTHANASIA MOVEMENT

Euphemisms are place-holders for important concepts. They may disguise a practice which one might abhor if it were given another name. In Nazi Germany during World War II, euphemisms were used to desensitize physicians and society to the horrors of a program of euthanasia. This article examines some of the euphemisms used by the Nazi physicians to redefine medicalized killing, compares the Nazi language games with those of contemporary proponents of medicalized killing, and concludes that the consistent application of euphemisms for medicalized killing significantly weakens arguments against assisted killing. We should watch the way we talk. Human society can be described as a long conversation about what matters. In this conversation, the language we use to describe our social practices not only reveals our attitudes and virtues, it shapes them (Winslow, 1994, p. 1). Nowhere is the revelatory and shaping function of words more evident than in the contemporary debate about physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia. Nearly everyone is aware of the role metaphors play in healthcare. For instance, Susan Sontag (1978) has written of the “punitive ” uses of “illness as metaphor. ” A blis-tering commentary on medical education, Samuel Shem’s (1978) The House of God, allows non-physicians to peek behind the veil and see the use of pejorative metaphors used by medical residents. In The House of God, a patient “who has lost—often through age—what goes into being a human being, ” was labeled