Posted on 07/08/2015 12:33:47 PM PDT by Salvation
Here in Washington D.C., the City Council has before it a bill modeled after Oregon’s physician-assisted suicide law. Listed as the “Death with Dignity Act of 2015,” a public hearing will take place this Friday, July 10th at 11:00 AM in the District building.
Experience thus far with legalized assisted suicide should alarm anyone who looks seriously into how it has played out. The “safeguards” of the Oregon law, so highly praised by its supporters, seem to be mere window dressings than actual safeguards. In Oregon, people are getting lethal drugs who live much longer than six months, and with the only data coming from the doctors who prescribe the lethal dose and no governing body charged with investigative oversight, the information coming from Oregon is suspect at best. The 2014 Oregon Assisted Suicide Report indicates a dramatic 44% increase in assisted suicide. It also indicates that only three of the dead had received a psychiatric evaluation.
Thankfully, a rather significant coalition of disabilities advocates, medical professionals, pro-life organizations and faith communities opposes this so-called “right-to-die” legislation. The American Medical Association (AMA) also opposes it, stating, “Physician-assisted suicide is fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer, would be difficult or impossible to control, and would pose serious societal risks.”
Why should we as Catholics oppose assisted suicide legislation? There are many reasons. Some of them are informed by our faith, others are more rooted in natural law or reason, while others flow from the consequences that will ultimately result from legalizing this form of suicide.
Let’s consider first what the Catechism teaches about assisted suicide, or euthanasia:
Those whose lives are diminished or weakened deserve special respect. Sick or handicapped persons should be helped to lead lives as normal as possible. Whatever its motives and means, direct euthanasia [or assisted suicide] consists in putting an end to the lives of handicapped, sick, or dying persons. It is morally unacceptable. Thus an act or omission which, of itself or by intention, causes death in order to eliminate suffering constitutes a murder gravely contrary to the dignity of the human person and to the respect due to the living God, his Creator. The error of judgment into which one can fall in good faith does not change the nature of this murderous act, which must always be forbidden and excluded.
Discontinuing medical procedures that are burdensome, dangerous, extraordinary, or disproportionate to the expected outcome can be legitimate; it is the refusal of “over-zealous” treatment. Here one does not will to cause death; one’s inability to impede it is merely accepted. The decisions should be made by the patient if he is competent and able or, if not, by those legally entitled to act for the patient, whose reasonable will and legitimate interests must always be respected.
Even if death is thought imminent, the ordinary care owed to a sick person cannot be legitimately interrupted (CCC 2277-2279).
Thus the Catechism defines euthanasia as the intentional killing of a patient, usually by direct means such as injection with deadly drugs, and sometimes indirectly by refusing to provide food and/or water. Assisted suicide includes similar means (lethal prescription, etc.) and shares the same end as euthanasia (an act intending to cause death to eliminate suffering); the distinction lies in who initiates the act – self or other. This distinction can often become blurred when one looks at the rising incidences of elder abuse, coercion and isolation experienced by many of our seniors, whether dealing with illness or not.
One cannot emphasize enough that allowing a person to die by refusing or withdrawing burdensome treatments, or by not providing machines such as ventilators that are unlikely to be therapeutic, does not qualify as assisted suicide. Church teaching does not require that one pursue every treatment possible. The patient must discern carefully with information supplied by his medical team along with an assessment of his personal resources – spiritual, psychological, emotional, familial and financial – whether or not a particular treatment is excessively burdensome. However, even for an imminently dying person, basic care (which usually includes nutrition and hydration, even if administered through a tube) must be provided.
Pain management for those with terminal illnesses, degenerative diseases, and the dying is allowed and encouraged, even if the pain medicine has the unintended side effect of shortening life. Arguments that dying is too painful and therefore a patient should be euthanized are not valid, since it is very rare today that pain cannot be managed reasonably through the advancements of the growing specialty of palliative care.
Let’s consider some other reasons, both religious and natural, that we should oppose assisted suicide. I’ll begin with the natural reasons that should concern us all, including those of different or no faith tradition. Then I’ll move to the religious reasons that should influence us who believe.
There are many more reasons to oppose assisted suicide purely on rational grounds. You can find more of these here: www.noDCSuicide.org. I would like to move on to those reasons that originate from our faith in Jesus Christ.
One of my privileges as a priest is to have accompanied many people on their final journey toward death. I’ve also accompanied their family members. And in making these journeys, I have discovered that some of God’s greatest and most necessary work takes place in and during the process of natural death.
Natural death is an important part of life that should be respected and accepted, not rejected. Some very important things happen for us on our death bed that assist us spiritually, psychologically, and emotionally. And these things happen not only to us, but to our loved ones as well.
I have seen pride melt away; I have seen powerful contrition for past sins emerge. I have seen gratitude intensify, both in the one who is dying and in the love ones who surround him or her. I have heard beautiful words like, “I love you,” “I am proud of you,” “I will miss you.” I have seen people let go and let God take over. I have seen forgiveness, tenderness, appreciation, and love being shared as never before. There is also the beautiful gift of listening and waiting, along with lessons learned that will never be forgotten.
I do not say that there is not grief and emotional pain; there is. But that is not all there is; there is beauty and love, too. And these are important and necessary. Perhaps some of the most necessary and profound things take place on our deathbed and at the deathbed of others.
Supporters of the legalization of assisted suicide might argue that these beautifully human and transformative moments also occur when one takes death into his own hands. I have no doubt that many tearful goodbye’s are shared and some reconciliation among family members occurs as well; but there is a very different quality and transparent authenticity within these moments when one has surrendered his/her life and control over to God.
The dying process helps us to receive the Kingdom of God like a little child, and God says this is necessary for us. As God directs Samuel: Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature … For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart (1 Sam 16:7). Yes, even in the painful sight of once-strong individuals reduced to weakness, there is a kind of strange beauty and we must ask the Lord to give us the “eyes to see” (cf. Mt 13:16). In the nursing homes of this land are people who once ran businesses, raised families, and led communities. Now many have returned to a kind of childhood, even infancy. Some cannot walk, some have to be fed, some can no longer talk, some clutch dolls, and some must wear diapers. All this seems so horrible to many, but important things are happening. These are not conditions that any one of us would willingly choose or wish upon another; however not one of these losses, even the significant loss of intellectual capacity in such diseases as Alzheimer’s, diminishes my worth and dignity. I do not want to minimize the pain that accompanies these losses – and the pain is not limited to the patient alone. Often family members and caregivers undergo significant stress and experience the pain of our Blessed Mother at the foot of the cross.
Again, something important is happening here.
Are those in nursing homes really so different from you and me? Maybe death and dying are the “place” where all worldly status, all privilege, all inequalities are leveled and we simply become who we are. Are we not all little children to God? Does He not have to provide for every one of us in our need? Does He not have to feed us, clothe us, and enable us to speak? Perhaps it is just that with the elderly and dying the illusion of self-sufficiency has been shed. The Lord says, Unless you change and become like little children you will not inherit the kingdom of God (Mat 18:3).
As Christians, we must once again reaffirm our acceptance of the Cross. No one likes the Cross – it is a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles (1 Cor 1:22), but we have been taught by Christ that the Cross is both necessary and saving. And we must insist, at least among our own number, upon the belief expressed by St. Paul: So we do not lose heart. Though our body is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this momentary affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal (2 Cor 4:16-18).
Think carefully before you support assisted suicide through some sort of limited notion of compassion. The truest compassion is to want for someone what he truly needs in order to be saved. Only God can ultimately say what this is. We do not have dignity because we can control our own lives; we have dignity because our life is in God’s hands.
States across the country have been rejecting efforts to legalize assisted suicide. Please take a moment to join the groundswell of opposition to this bill.
Monsignor Pope Ping!
As long as there is an exemption to allow them to continue to “assist” leftists, I’m in!
(2 Cor 4:16-18).
I put it right up there as a personal right like the right to keep and bear arms.
I can enforce my right at any time I choose. I should not need the state to PERMIT me to die.
...except that depression is typical in struggles with your conscience...
so, liberals are immune.
I have the distinct feeling that this will be the next front after abortion and gay marriage. I shudder to think of our future when they start killing us after the womb. No one will be safe. Your child was born with disabilities? Watch out for Big Gov, they will whisk him off to the slaughter house. Granny is incontinent? Off to the slaughter house with her.
Saving children from queers I will go for.
But how would you save souls by making a law against suicide?
suicide = self-inflicted post partum abortion
FYI - my mother is in hospice, but does not want an injection to kill her done by the doctor and neither do I.
Beautiful! Those moments are between the person and God, and should be respected. There is so much that takes place within the soul as it steps from time into eternity: more than we can realize.
Prediction: This is the next issue that the Supreme Court will decide is a “right”.
My point? It wasn't his time; it wasn't his decision; hee survived. When God said, "Thou shalt not kill", He included ourselves. There isn't a thing that happens in all creation that God does not permit nor ordain. Yes you have a right to life- but it was given to you by God. He decided when, by whom, and even which egg and sperm were going to find one another. Your life is a gift from God that you had no control over. He denied you the right to destroy that life, in Scripture. Your choice is how you live what is in between the beginning and the end. Those choices determine what is after, my friend. Please choose carefully!
Next on the Culture of Death agenda? Yes, I agree with you, it probably is. That will give them time for more genetic engineering so satan can fool himself into thinking he is the Creator. Got people like Sanger and Hitler and Mengele to thank for seeking to make a “perfect” race and eliminate all “undesirables.” Our once great nation has followed down that road, and isn’t changing direction. God have mercy on us before it’s too late.
Sanger and I share a hometown. She was appalling. The city barely acknowledges her. It is our shame.
It’s one thing when a tortured soul who is mentally ill and hears voices telling him/her to kill themselves, and does so on impulse; they are ill and not totally, if at all, culpable. Assisted suicide is premeditated and deliberate- and involves so much more. Check the stipulations in the article: full knowledge, or someone with full knowledge; the physician who signs; the actual administrator of what is ultimately lethal, and everyone in the hierarchy of that facility/organization where it is permitted. A lot of souls involved there...
At least she is regarded with shame, which says a lot for your community. The nation regards her as some sort of heroine. I would bet that she’s the woman who’ll be chosen for the new 10-dollar bill. Sad...
One former fetus to another...
God bless you, GF! Prayers remain up for you, your Mom, and all those whom you love!
Thank you.
Anyone recall the Beatle album where the 4 of them wore white coats, and had pieces of meat and dismembered baby dolls on them? The albums were recalled after public outcry, and became, I think, "Revolver."
How times have changed, with saline burning, suction dismemberment, and partial birth forms of abortion. I bet if they released it now, nobody would bat an eye. What prompted them to take that picture back then in the first place? I can't help but wonder...
A lot of souls involved there...
Partly because I do not believe any one is going to die unless it is time for them to die regardless of how it happens, I believe that has to do with predestination.
And how about the soldier who falls on the grenade to save his friends is that not suicide?
Well like I said, I don`t know.
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