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Why euthanasia is partially blind to love
Scottish Catholic Observer ^ | 3/27/1 | Fr. Ronald Rolheiser

Posted on 03/27/2015 7:59:33 AM PDT by wagglebee

Raissa Maritain, the philosopher and spiritual writer, died some months after suffering a stroke. During those months she lay in a hospital bed, unable to speak. After her death, her husband, the renowned philosopher, Jacques Maritain, in preparing her journals for publication, wrote these words:

“At a moment when everything collapsed for both of us, and which as followed by four agonising months, Raissa was walled in herself by a sudden attack of aphasia. Whatever progress she made during several weeks by sheer force of intelligence and will, all deep communication remained cut off. And subsequently, after a relapse, she could barely articulate words. In the supreme battle in which she was engaged, no one on earth could help her, myself no more than anyone else. She preserved the peace of her soul, her full lucidity, her humour, her concern for her friends, the fear of being a trouble to others, and her marvellous smile and the extraordinary light of her wonderful eyes. To everyone who came near her, she invariably gave—and with what astonishing silent generosity during her last two days, when she could only breathe out her love—some sort of impalpable gift which emanated from the mystery in which she was enclosed.”

The emphasis on the last sentence is my own and I highlight it because, I believe, it has something important to say in an age where, more and more, we are coming to believe that euthanasia and various forms of physician-assisted suicide are the humane and compassionate answer to terminal illness.

The case for euthanasia generally revolves around these premises: Suffering devalues human life and euthanasia alleviates that suffering and the ravages of the body and mind that come with that suffering so as to provide a terminally ill person “death with dignity” and death with less suffering. As well, it is argued, that once an illness has so debilitated a person so as to leave him or her in a virtual vegetative state, what is the logic for keeping such a person alive? Once dignity and usefulness are gone, why continue to live?

What’s to be said in response to this? The logic for euthanasia, compassionate in so far as it goes, doesn’t go far enough to consider a number of deeper issues. Dignity and usefulness are huge terms with more dimensions than first meet the eye. In a recent article in AMERICA magazine, Jessica Keating highlights some of those deeper issues as she argues against the logic of those who have lauded Brittany Maynard’s (the young woman who captured national attention last year by choosing assisted suicide in the face of a terminal illness) decision to take her own life as “courageous”, “sensible”, and “admirable”. Keating concedes that, had she not made that decision, Maynard would no doubt have suffered greatly and would in all likelihood eventually been rendered unproductive and unattractive. But, Keating argues, “she would have been present in a web of relationships. Even if she had fallen unconscious, she likely would have been read to, washed, dressed and kissed. She would have been gently caressed, held and wept over. She would simply have been loved to the end.”

That’s half the argument against euthanasia. The other half reads this way: Not only would she have been loved to the end, but, perhaps more importantly, she would have been actively emitting love until the end. From her ravaged, silent, mostly-unconscious body would have emanated an intangible, but particularly powerful, nurture and love, akin to the powerful life-giving grace that emanated from Jesus broken, naked body on the cross.

We too seldom make this important distinction: We believe that Jesus saved us through his life and through his death, as if these were the same thing. But they are very different: Jesus gave his life for us through his activity, his usefulness, through what he could actively do for us. But he gave his death for us through his passivity, through his helplessness, through the humiliation of his body in death. Jesus gave us his greatest gift precisely during those hours when he couldn’t do anything active for us.

And this isn’t something simply metaphorical and intangible. Anyone of us who have sat at the bedside of a dying loved one have experienced that in that person’s helplessness and pain he or she is giving us something that he or she couldn’t give us during his or her active life. From that person’s helplessness and pain emanates a power to draw us together as family, a power to intuit and understand deeper things, a deeper appreciation of life, and especially a much deeper recognition of that person’s life and spirit. And this, impalpable gift, as Maritain says, emanates from the mystery of pain, non-utility, and dying in which he or she is enclosed.

In our dying bodies we can give our loved ones something we cannot fully give them when we are healthy and active. Euthanasia is partially blind to the mystery of how love is given.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: euthanasia; moralabsolutes; prolife
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In our dying bodies we can give our loved ones something we cannot fully give them when we are healthy and active. Euthanasia is partially blind to the mystery of how love is given.

Very true.

1 posted on 03/27/2015 7:59:33 AM PDT by wagglebee
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To: Coleus; narses; Salvation
Pro-Life Ping
2 posted on 03/27/2015 8:00:02 AM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: 185JHP; 230FMJ; AKA Elena; APatientMan; Albion Wilde; Aleighanne; Alexander Rubin; ...
Moral Absolutes Ping!

Freepmail wagglebee to subscribe or unsubscribe from the moral absolutes ping list.

FreeRepublic moral absolutes keyword search
[ Add keyword moral absolutes to flag FR articles to this ping list ]


3 posted on 03/27/2015 8:00:32 AM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: Ohioan from Florida; 8mmMauser; T'wit; wagglebee; Alamo-Girl; AlwaysFree; amdgmary; angelwings49; ..

4 posted on 03/27/2015 8:02:34 AM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: wagglebee

The idea of love without words is foreign to those who have built their world around mere words, words, words


5 posted on 03/27/2015 8:07:07 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Embrace the Lion of Judah and He will roar for you and teach you to roar too. See my page.)
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To: wagglebee

It’s a great sad human folly that if we cannot make a thing move or otherwise actively adapt it with our mortal efforts, than that thing means nothing.

Sometimes it is the time to just step back and let God be God in a situation.


6 posted on 03/27/2015 8:09:14 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Embrace the Lion of Judah and He will roar for you and teach you to roar too. See my page.)
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To: HiTech RedNeck

You’ve been watching My Fair Lady again, haven’t you? LOL. Those lyrics actually kind of fit here.


Words! Words! Words! I’m so sick of words!
I get words all day through;
First from him, now from you!
Is that all you blighters can do?
Don’t talk of stars burning above;
If you’re in love, Show me!
Tell me no dreams filled with desire.
If you’re on fire, Show me!
Here we are together in the middle of the night!
Don’t talk of spring! Just hold me tight!
Anyone who’s ever been in love’ll tell you that
This is no time for a chat!
Haven’t your lips longed for my touch?
Don’t say how much, Show me! Show me!
Don’t talk of love lasting through time.
Make me no undying vow. Show me now!

Sing me no song! Read me no rhyme!
Don’t waste my time, Show me!
Don’t talk of June, Don’t talk of fall!
Don’t talk at all! Show me!
Never do I ever want to hear another word.
There isn’t one I haven’t heard.
Here we are together in what ought to be a dream;
Say one more word and I’ll scream!
Haven’t your arms hungered for mine?
Please don’t “expl’ine,” Show me! Show me!
Don’t wait until wrinkles and lines
Pop out all over my brow,
Show me now!


7 posted on 03/27/2015 8:28:37 AM PDT by BykrBayb (Where there is life, there is hope. - Terri Schiavo ~ Þ)
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To: BykrBayb

Amusingly, I have never been to that and almost never listened to it. One of my popular cultural lacunae.


8 posted on 03/27/2015 8:30:14 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Embrace the Lion of Judah and He will roar for you and teach you to roar too. See my page.)
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To: HiTech RedNeck

The whole point of euthanasia is to make man into god. We are removing “God’s Will” to “Man’s will be done”.

Words/Language-—from the philosophy of Wittgenstein again.....Control the Words and you control the perceptions of the “ignorant” masses.

“Death with Dignity” is a Marxist creation, as is creating oxymorons (for mass consumption so Reason will disappear) like the term “homosexual “marriage”-—an impossibility which now all children who have heard that term repeated over and over believe it is god-ordained and Logical.

Words matter. Ideas matter-—particularly when children hear them over and over-—it will create the proper perceptions (for useful idiots).

All Classical education (and the Bible) teaches that Wisdom only comes through suffering. Marxists hate Wisdom in the masses and are trying to create “heaven on earth” since they believe in nothing.


9 posted on 03/27/2015 8:41:13 AM PDT by savagesusie (Right Reason According to Nature = Just Law)
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To: HiTech RedNeck
🎶 There isn't one, I haven't heard. 🎶

Well, maybe lacunae. Which I guess would be one of my vocabulary lacunae?

Swinging back to the point you made, some people think they can substitute words for actions. Saying "I love you" is infinitely easier than providing tangible services to someone in need. Miss Doolittle figured out that life lesson in the end.

10 posted on 03/27/2015 8:42:31 AM PDT by BykrBayb (Where there is life, there is hope. - Terri Schiavo ~ Þ)
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To: wagglebee

Denmark; here we come.


11 posted on 03/27/2015 9:14:06 AM PDT by celmak
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To: wagglebee
Those in California, please do what you can while you can about SB-128.

http://www.lifenews.com/2015/03/26/california-senate-panel-passes-bill-to-legalize-assisted-suicide-doctors-would-lie-about-deaths/

12 posted on 03/27/2015 9:19:32 AM PDT by celmak
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To: wagglebee

Awesome


13 posted on 03/27/2015 9:37:15 AM PDT by RnMomof7
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To: savagesusie

with the whole thing egged on by the devil


14 posted on 03/27/2015 10:32:52 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Embrace the Lion of Judah and He will roar for you and teach you to roar too. See my page.)
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To: savagesusie

i mean, this is being pulled along by a colossally evil power that is trying to “get at” God any way it can. this is not like mere bumbling and stumbling.


15 posted on 03/27/2015 10:34:47 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Embrace the Lion of Judah and He will roar for you and teach you to roar too. See my page.)
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To: wagglebee

Euthanasia is not about putting any one out of their misery. It is spelled M O N E Y.


16 posted on 03/27/2015 12:43:02 PM PDT by floriduh voter (Send Barry from the white house to the big house (never happen but I can dream.))
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To: BykrBayb

Hi, BB.


17 posted on 03/27/2015 12:43:39 PM PDT by floriduh voter (Send Barry from the white house to the big house (never happen but I can dream.))
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To: HiTech RedNeck; BykrBayb
I was in high school My Fair Lady, a bit part. Our Henry Higgins was in the movie Gremlins and was the first Rum Tum Tigger in Cats, Terrance Mann.

He tours with Pippin now as the old King(makes me feel a little bit older too.)

18 posted on 03/27/2015 12:45:36 PM PDT by floriduh voter (Send Barry from the white house to the big house (never happen but I can dream.))
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To: floriduh voter

Hi yourself, FV. Long time no see. Hope you’re doing well. How are the ducks and kitties?


19 posted on 03/27/2015 1:11:52 PM PDT by BykrBayb (Where there is life, there is hope. - Terri Schiavo ~ Þ)
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To: BykrBayb

I got FUMIGATED. Me personally. The vikane gas didn’t leave like Dow Chemical says it does. One kitty and I have been ill since Nov. 1. Chloropicrin is a killer poison. So far, it’s killed my voice, wrecked lots of me but I’m workin’ on it. Naturally, no ambulance chasers for being poisoned. WHAT A COUNTRY!


20 posted on 03/27/2015 3:53:02 PM PDT by floriduh voter (Send Barry from the white house to the big house (never happen but I can dream.))
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