Thread by me.
Last week in Washington state a 66-year-old woman with terminal cancer made history as the first person to undergo physician-assisted suicide since that state legalized the practice in November of 2008.
Proponents of legalized suicide celebrated Washington's approval of this policy as a victory for the "death with dignity" movement. These suicide advocates, in keeping with the rhetorical tactic of their ideological cousins in the pro-abortion movement, equate "dignity" with "choice." Unfortunately, as with the abortion debate, the "choice" rhetoric of the right-to-die movement eclipses critical moral and ethical questions which ought to be at the forefront of the debate.
Is suicide really a way to honor life and preserve dignity? What are the social and cultural implications of normalizing the "right to die?" Will voluntary physician-assisted suicide give way to involuntary physician-assisted suicide where doctors decide whether their patients would be better off dead? Will the "right" to suicide be transmogrified into a "duty" to commit suicide? Will the elderly who consume more than they produce be deemed "resource hogs" that have a duty to die and get out of the way?
In an age of scarce economic resources, will the critically ill or the handicapped or the demented be viewed as expendable by their younger, healthier counterparts? How will the medical profession be transformed if those who are trained to cure are given a license to kill? These and many other questions should be asked and answered before we decide it's okay to encourage terminally-ill persons to choose self-destruction in the name of dignity.
But we won't get answers if we allow this debate to be defined solely in terms of the euphemistic "right to choose." Indeed, these questions won't even be asked.
Dying with dignity does not require suicide. The question, "Do you want to suffer and die or die with dignity?" presents a false choice and assumes that there are only two alternatives at the end of life—pain or death. Properly employed, modern medicine has the tools to mitigate pain. Hospice care, for example, employs a multi-disciplinary approach to ensure that terminally-ill patients endure their final time on earth with dignity—free from pain and nourished physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.
Hospice care does not seek to stop the dying process. The goal of hospice care is to make a difficult time as comfortable and peaceful as possible for both the patient and their loved ones. The important distinction between palliative care and physician-assisted suicide is that the first respects the inviolability of human life in spite of the difficulties presented by illness while the second rejects the sanctity of life in favor of an expedient escape from pain and fear. . .
Thread by markomalley.
Last Sunday, late-term abortion doctor George Tiller was gunned down in the foyer of his Lutheran church, where he served as an usher. As anyone with even a cursory understanding of Lutheranism in America could surmise, that church was a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. Of the various Lutheran church bodies in America, the ELCA is the most mainline and has the most supportive position on legalized abortion.
As soon as the terrible news about Tiller’s murder hit the wire, many bloggers and liberal pundits noted that Tiller’s active church membership was at odds with the stereotype of how abortion and religion are related. It didn’t take long for that same meme to make it to the mainstream media stories.
What none of these stories have explained is that Tiller had previously been excommunicated by a Lutheran congregation on account of his lack of repentance about and refusal to stop his occupation. That Lutheran congregation was a member of my church body, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. Excommunication doesn’t happen terribly frequently in this day and age but it’s not unheard of. I don’t know any of the specifics about his past congregation or what led to the discipline and anticipated learning more about it when it was covered by the mainstream media. Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened.
When the news broke, I had many people who know that I’m Lutheran ask how it was possible that his church had not disciplined him or otherwise encouraged him to stop performing abortions. I had hoped that there would be stories exploring Tiller’s religious beliefs and church membership and that the stories would explain the difference between the ELCA and the LCMS. There is obviously quite a difference between a church body that would discipline a practicing abortion doctor and one that would welcome him in membership. . .