Posted on 04/18/2015 6:30:52 AM PDT by Kaslin
"It's scary and it knocks the breath out of you."
Maggie Karner is not unrealistic or "romantic" about death and dying. And she should know.
"It takes a long time to come to terms with a disease -- especially a terminal illness. And then you start thinking; 'OK, this is the new me. This is the new normal. And I can still appreciate every moment.'"
Earlier this spring, when I co-hosted a National Review Institute panel on assisted suicide with Ryan T. Anderson of the Heritage Foundation, we began it with a video of Karner. No speech is as compelling as her testimony.
Karner is dying. Last year, she was diagnosed with brain cancer. After chemotherapy and radiation, the cancer cells are growing again. Karner has seen tragedy before. In the video from the Patients Rights Action Fund, Karner talks about her father, who suffered an injury to his spine.
His accident was devastating. He became quadriplegic, after leading a very active life. Karner's family wondered how he was "going to exist without the use of his arms and legs."
But "he settled in very gracefully," Karner says. And the family greatly benefited from watching his struggle.
"We learned a lot. It was a gift that our Dad gave to us." He showed her that life doesn't have value because of what we can do. "I saw with my two eyes, what joy can still be found in just valuing every moment. It doesn't mean it's going to be great. It doesn't mean it is going to be romantic. But there are moments that need to be cherished.
"He left us a legacy with the time that he gave us," Karner explains on the video. "He could have checked out right away and said 'I'm done with this.'" Instead, "My dad showed me not just how to live and how to do stuff and how to be productive. He showed me how to die with grace and dignity."
Six in 10 Americans do not support assisted suicide, according to a new Marist poll commissioned by the Knights of Columbus, and a large majority -- including supporters -- has deep concerns about the effect it will have on the practice of medicine. This is despite well-funded campaigns that insist that assisted suicide should be a free choice and is a matter of "mercy" and "dignity."
But physician-assisted suicide is based on the lie that some lives are unworthy to be lived. And that notion has grave implications for health care in America.
"A commitment to never participate in assisted suicide is essential for the possibility of doctors continuing to care well for patients who are dying," one of our panelists, Farr Curlin, a professor at Duke University School of Medicine, argues.
"The commitment to not kill our patients or help them kill themselves is an essential guard against the temptation to get rid of a patient's suffering by getting rid of the patient."
The Marist poll shows that very few people consider legalizing physician-assisted suicide a priority. So why is it being considered in almost 20 states this year?
A lot of the media coverage of assisted suicide has profiled beautiful young women, points out Sr. Constance Veit of the religious group Little Sisters of the Poor. But it's the people her organization serves in over 30 nations who are most affected by assisted suicide's implications -- the elderly. She tells of family reconciliations that have happened during final days, with "the room of a dying person almost (becoming) the spiritual center of our house at that point."
What legacy will we leave here? Assisting the suicide of medicine or cherishing life, especially the lives of the most weak and vulnerable?
as for me and my house...”cherishing life, especially the lives of the most weak and vulnerable”.
Thank you.
Great post
Thanks.
When I’m at my ‘most weak & vulnerable’, decrepit & meeting my own terms, I do not wish upon my family bearing witness to my tortured death & humiliation, themselves tortured in the process.
There is NO argument that can remove my right and, thus, the need exists for a legal alternative for my friends and/or family to carry out my wishes.
.02
Losing interest in nurturing the most vulnerable is a sickness brought on by loss of humanity. We kill disabled children in the womb because we do not want to be encumbered by their care. We sacrifice the greatest love for the most selfish desires.
“Right to die” WILL become “DUTY to die”. The camel’s nose, FRiend. Be careful what you wish for...
“Losing interest in nurturing the most vulnerable is a sickness brought on by loss of humanity. We kill disabled children in the womb because we do not want to be encumbered by their care. We sacrifice the greatest love for the most selfish desires.”
So true! The sick, aged, infirm and little handicapped children are for our benefit, not we for theirs. As you have said, humankind can only grow better by caring for and nurturing all such with all the love we can muster. The blessings to us far outweigh any that we might be to them. I’m sure they will be blessed and rewarded for fulfilling their purpose here on Earth.
Ryan Anderson videos removed from LifeSiteNews, get ‘em here
A dear friend of ours has brain cancer and has had it for over a year when he was given 3 months to live. Life has changed dramatically for his wife and family and our church family. He sometimes does not know how to read when inflammation is bad, but his wife will tell you that she sees miracles upon miracles as he lives each day that the Lord gives him! On our last visit he could not get one sentence out and he could hear that he could not. So, when we left he told his wife, “I want to say my prayer”. We held hands and heard the power of the Holy Spirit pray through him a perfect prayer of probably 20 sentences!!! We all were in tears. She told us that another miracle just took place as he had not completed a sentence well that week! Their faith has made me open my eyes at how I have taken mine for granted too long.
If taking an extreme is the only alternative in this debate then I will GLADLY support my right against those that oppose it by all means necessary.
Straw man argument swings both ways: Personal choice is never trumped by the State in a free society.
If I have to be at war with both the progs and the religious right, so be it.
I have MS...and I frequent a few MS forums.
Seems those who talk of assisted suicide, or suicide itself, are not dealing with the issue that their life is unworthy to be lived, but rather the desire to experience death on their terms, rather than live out their lives with end stage MS, dependent on others for their care.
I am not of that persuasion, but do feel the author of the article took liberties in regards to physicians pushing assisted suicide, when what I see on forums is patients pushing for it.
End stage MS is not pretty and those with severe forms of the disease do not want to go to that place.
Annette Funicello video of late stage progressive MS:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGV7fyW82lM
Few things are more selfish than asking someone to help you commit suicide.
However, that's not what this legislation is about. It's about lethal drug overdoses prescribed by death-docs who aren't even qualified to diagnose depression.
And the only "protection" in all these laws --- which mirror Oregon's law --- is for the prescribing doctor, not the patient. The law protects the doctor from lawsuit, even if there's evidence of coercion on the part of a death-promoting heir (giving grim new significance to the saying "Where there's a will, there's a way.")
The drug-pushing doctor cannot be sued if he claims he acted in "good faith," a claim it is practically impossible to disprove in court, unless he actually took a bribe in front of a witness.
Anyone who wants to commit suicide on their own can do so, and 30 minutes' worth of mousing around on the Internet can tell you how.
But don't insist on "authorization" or "participation" from church or state or medico or politico. Surely in the name of autonomy, a would-be suicider can take care of business without insisting on corrupting the political, legal, and medical professions.
A self-respecting suicider (I am not recommending this) should be responsible for himself. This "legalized" "physician-assisted" crap just puts more death-dealing power in the hands of the State.
"The destruction of society's safeguards is the goal. The people actually committing suicide aren't pushing for the corruption of our political, legal and medical professions. That is being pushed by people who have no intention of committing suicide or partaking in the "services" they're demanding. Those "services" are conveniently reserved for others."
Sounds like a job for a lawyer, who doesn't have a conscience to hurt.
I never wrote that doctors needed to be able to do it legally, but that I and other like-minded people should be able to do it legally.
I could give a rat who does it. My/our choice.
The blanket NO crap infringes on my rights and it nerds to stop.
I never wrote ANYWHERE that doctors should be corrupted or tasked with assisted suicide. That’s an asinine straw man argument against assisted suicide. I stand by my prior statements.
If FR had a “like” button, I’d’ve pushed it for your post.
:o) OK . . . I'm sayin' NO to nerds.
Headline: 40,000 suicides annually, yet America simply shrugs
Nobody's going to stop you from committing suicide on your own, because nobody can stop you. There's a suicide in the USA every 13 minutes. There's autonomy for you.
This business of getting your friends involved seems to show a real lack of consideration. You'd be opening them up for homicide investigation ---- because if the authorities don't investigate freelance "assisted suicides" as homicides, they're opening up bogus set-up "suicides" as a foolproof way to murder people. No socially responsible, liberty-loving person wants that.
To spell it out, getting your BFF's and kin involved imposes sticky complication for them and the rest of society. Even if you wanted to make a video of your full consent and the doing of the deed, there would still have to be an investigation to see if force, fear, coercion or drugging --- including the use of hypnotics, barbiturates and sedatives, or even alcohol --- were used to manipulate your consent through heightening suggestibility.
If they do such inquiry in the context of a criminal investigation, it's a hassle for your dearly beloved accomplices. If they don't do serious investigation, you've just made it a whole hell of a lot easier for "family and friends" to commit murder.
Again, logi, you already have the effective individual liberty to commit suicide. Nobody will stop you, because nobody can. You can make the annual count 40,000 + 1.
I am not recommending this. I am just telling you how it is.
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