Arguments Against Euthanasia1. Euthanasia would not only be for people who are "terminally ill" 2. Euthanasia can become a means of health care cost containment 3. Euthanasia will become non-voluntary 4. Euthanasia is a rejection of the importance and value of human life

1. Euthanasia would not only be for people who are "terminally ill." There are two problems here -- the definition of "terminal" and the changes that have already taken place to extend euthanasia to those who aren't "terminally ill." There are many definitions for the word "terminal." For example, when he spoke to the National Press Club in 1992, Jack Kevorkian said that a terminal illness was "any disease that curtails life even for a day." The co-founder of the Hemlock Society often refers to "terminal old age." Some laws define "terminal" condition as one from which death will occur in a "relatively short time." Others state that "terminal" means that death is expected within six months or less.

Even where a specific life expectancy (like six months) is referred to, medical experts acknowledge that it is virtually impossible to predict the life expectancy of a particular patient. Some people diagnosed as terminally ill don't die for years, if at all, from the diagnosed condition. Increasingly, however, euthanasia activists have dropped references to terminal illness, replacing them with such phrases as "hopelessly ill," "desperately ill," "incurably ill," "hopeless condition," and "meaningless life."

An article in the journal, Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, described assisted suicide guidelines for those with a hopeless condition. "Hopeless condition" was defined to include terminal illness, severe physical or psychological pain, physical or mental debilitation or deterioration, or a quality of life that is no longer acceptable to the individual. That means just about anybody who has a suicidal impulse .

2. Euthanasia can become a means of health care cost containment

"...physician-assisted suicide, if it became widespread, could become a profit-enhancing tool for big HMOs. "

"...drugs used in assisted suicide cost only about $40, but that it could take $40,000 to treat a patient properly so that they don't want the "choice" of assisted suicide..." ... Wesley J. Smith, senior fellow at

the Discovery Institute.

Perhaps one of the most important developments in recent years is the increasing emphasis placed on health care providers to contain costs. In such a climate, euthanasia certainly could become a means of cost containment.

In the United States, thousands of people have no medical insurance; studies have shown that the poor and minorities generally are not given access to available pain control, and managed-care facilities are offering physicians cash bonuses if they don't provide care for patients. With greater and greater emphasis being placed on managed care, many doctors are at financial risk when they provide treatment for their patients. Legalized euthanasia raises the potential for a profoundly dangerous situation in which doctors could find

themselves far better off financially if a seriously ill or disabled person "chooses" to die rather than receive long-term care.

Savings to the government may also become a consideration. This could take place if governments cut back on paying for treatment and care and replace them with the "treatment" of death. For example, immediately after the passage of Measure 16, Oregon's law permitting assisted suicide, Jean Thorne, the state's Medicaid Director, announced that physician-assisted suicide would be paid for as "comfort care" under the Oregon Health Plan which provides medical coverage for about 345,000 poor Oregonians. Within eighteen months of Measure 16's passage, the State of Oregon announced plans to cut back on health care coverage for poor state residents. In Canada, hospital stays are being shortened while, at the same time, funds have not been made available for home care for the sick and elderly. Registered nurses are being replaced with less expensive practical nurses. Patients are forced to endure long waits for many types of needed surgery. 1

3. Euthanasia will only be voluntary, they say Emotional and psychological pressures could become overpowering for depressed or dependent people. If the choice of euthanasia is considered as good as a decision to receive care, many people will feel guilty for not choosing death. Financial considerations, added to the concern about "being a burden," could serve as powerful forces that would lead a person to "choose" euthanasia or assisted suicide.

People for euthanasia say that voluntary euthanasia will not lead to involuntary euthanasia. They look at things as simply black and white. In real life there would be millions of situations each year where cases would not fall clearly into either category. Here are two:

Example 1: an elderly person in a nursing home, who can barely understand a breakfast menu, is asked to sign a form consenting to be killed. Is this voluntary or involuntary? Will they be protected by the law? How? Right now the overall prohibition on killing stands in the way. Once one signature can sign away a person's life, what can be as strong a protection as the current absolute prohibition on direct killing? Answer: nothing.

Example 2: a woman is suffering from depresssion and asks to be helped to commit suicide. One doctor sets up a practice to "help" such people. She and anyone who wants to die knows he will approve any such request. He does thousands a year for $200 each. How does the law protect people from him? Does it specify that a doctor can only approve 50 requests a year? 100? 150? If you don't think there are such doctors, just look at recent stories of doctors and nurses who are charged with murder for killing dozens or hundreds of patients.

Legalized euthanasia would most likely progress to the stage where people, at a certain point, would be expected to volunteer to be killed. Think about this: What if your veternarian said that your ill dog would be better of "put out of her misery" by being "put to sleep" and you refused to consent. What would the vet and his assistants think? What

would your friends think? Ten years from now, if a doctor told you your mother's "quality of life" was not worth living for and asked you, as the closest family member, to approve a "quick, painless ending of her life" and you refused how would doctors, nurses and others, conditioned to accept euthanasia as normal and right, treat you and your mother. Or, what if the approval was sought from your mother, who was depressed by her illness? Would she have the strength to refuse what everyone in the nursing home "expected" from seriously ill elderly people?

The movement from voluntary to involuntary euthanasia would be like the movement of abortion from "only for the life or health of the mother" as was proclaimed by advocates 30 years ago to today's "abortion on demand even if the baby is half born". Euthanasia people state that abortion is something people choose - it is not forced on them and that voluntary euthanasia will not be forced on them either. They are missing the main point - it is not an issue of force - it is an issue of the way laws against an action can be broadened and expanded once something is declared legal. You don't need to be against abortion to appreciate the way the laws on abortion have changed and to see how it could well happen the same way with euthanasia/assisted suicide as soon as the door is opened to make it legal.

4. Euthanasia is a rejection of the importance and value of human life. People who support euthanasia often say that it is already considered permissable to take human life under some circumstances such as self defense - but they miss the point that when one kills for self defense they are saving innocent life - either their own or someone else's. With euthanasia no one's life is being saved - life is only taken.

History has taught us the dangers of euthanasia and that is why there are only two countries in the world today where it is legal. That is why almost all societies - even non-religious ones - for thousands of years have made euthanasia a crime. It is remarkable that euthanasia advocates today think they know better than the billions of people throughout history who have outlawed euthanasia - what makes the 50 year old euthanasia supporters in 2005 so wise that they think they can discard the accumulated wisdom of almost all societies of all time and open the door to the killing of innocent people? Have things changed? If they have, they are changes that should logically reduce the call for euthanasia - pain control medicines and procedure are far better than they have ever been any time in history.

http://www.euthanasia.com/argumentsagainsteuthanasia.html

Reasons for Euthanasia

1. Unbearable pain 2. Right to commit suicide 3. People should not be forced to stay alive

1. Unbearable pain as the reason for euthanasia Probably the major argument in favor of euthanasia is that the person involved is in great

pain. Today, advances are constantly being made in the treatment of pain and, as they advance, the case for euthanasia/assisted-suicide is proportionally weakened. Euthanasia advocates stress the cases of unbearable pain as reasons for euthanasia, but then they soon include a "drugged" state. I guess that is in case virtually no uncontrolled pain cases can be found - then they can say those people are drugged into a no-pain state but they need to be euthanasiaed from such a state because it is not dignified. See the opening for the slippery slope? How do you measure "dignity"? No - it will be euthanasia "on demand". The pro-euthanasia folks have already started down the slope. They are even now not stoping with "unbearable pain" - they are alrady including this "drugged state" and other circumstances.

Nearly all pain can be eliminated and - in those rare cases where it can't be eliminated - it can still be reduced significantly if proper treatment is provided. It is a national and international scandal that so many people do not get adequate pain control. But killing is not the answer to that scandal. The solution is to mandate better education of health care professionals on these crucial issues, to expand access to health care, and to inform patients about their rights as consumers. Everyone - whether it be a person with a life-threatening illness or a chronic condition - has the right to pain relief. With modern advances in pain control, no patient should ever be in excruciating pain. However, most doctors have never had a course in pain management so they're unaware of what to do. If a patient who is under a doctor's care is in excruciating pain, there's definitely a need to find a different doctor. But that doctor should be one who will control the pain, not one who will kill the patient. There are board certified specialists in pain management who will not only help alleviate physical pain but are skilled in providing necessary support to deal with emotional suffering and depression that often accompanies physical pain.

2. Demanding a "right to commit suicide" Probably the second most common point pro-euthanasia people bring up is this so-called "right." But what we are talking about is not giving a right to the person who is killed, but to the person who does the killing. In other words, euthanasia is not about the right to die. It's about the right to kill. Euthanasia is not about giving rights to the person who dies but, instead, is about changing the law and public policy so that doctors, relatives and others can directly and intentionally end another person's life. People do have the power to commit suicide. Suicide and attempted suicide are not criminalized. Suicide is a tragic, individual act. Euthanasia is not about a private act. It's about letting one person facilitate the death of another. That is a matter of very public concern since it can lead to tremendous abuse, exploitation and erosion of care for the most vulnerable people among us.

3. Should people be forced to stay alive? No. And neither the law nor medical ethics requires that "everything be done" to keep a person alive. Insistence, against the patient's wishes, that death be postponed by every means available is contrary to law and practice. It would also be cruel and inhumane. There comes a time when continued attempts to cure are not compassionate, wise, or medically sound. That's where hospice, including in-home hospice care, can be of such help. That is the time when all efforts should be placed on making the patient's remaining time comfortable. Then, all interventions should be

directed to alleviating pain and other symptoms as well as to the provision of emotional and spiritual support for both the patient and the patient's loved ones.

http://www.euthanasia.com/reasonsforeuthanasia.html

Quotations on Euthanasia

“I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel” ... The Hippocratic Oath

"From the Soviet gulag to the Nazi concentration camps and the killing fields of Cambodia, history teaches that granting the state legal authority to kill innocent individuals has dreadful consequences." ... Pete Du Pont, former Delaware governor

"The fundamental question about euthanasia: Whether it is a libertarian movement for human freedom and the right of choice, or an aggressive drive to exterminate the weak, the old, and the different, this question can now be answered. It is both." ... Richard Fenigsen, Dutch cardiologist

"the terminally ill are a class of persons who need protection from family, social, and economic pressures, and who are often particularly vulnerable to such pressures because of chronic pain, depression, and the effects of medication." ... from the State of Alaska's arguments that assisted suicide is dangerous (Sampson et al. v State of Alaska, 09/21/2001)

Senator and former Vice Presidential Candidate Joseph Lieberman said doctors need to learn more about pain control and should be protected from prosecution "if they prescribe pain killers that may increase the possibility of death so long as their specific intention was not to end life." "Doctors should do everything they can to reduce pain, but not to administer drugs to end life, I think we go over a line then." ... Joseph Lieberman (From a March 19, 2001 article in the Post-Intelligencer Washington Bureau. "http://seattlep-i.nwsource.com/national/suicides19.shtml" )

"A man, even if seriously sick or prevented in the exercise of its higher functions, is and will be always a man ... [he] will never become a 'vegetable' or an 'animal,'" the Pope said. "The intrinsic value and personal dignity of every human being does not change depending on their circumstances.“ ... Pope John Paul II, 2004

"Experience in The Netherlands, where there has been relatively little effort to improve pain and symptom treatment, suggests that legalization of physician-assisted suicide might weaken society's resolve to expand services and resources aimed at caring for the dying patient. (Foley, 1995; Hendin, 1994)" ... "Treatment of Pain at the End of Life", A Position Statement from the American Pain Society

In the election campaign of 2000, Presidential candidate Ralph Nader said he was worried that the Oregon law legalizing assisted suicide targets terminally ill patients who suffer from depression and those who worry about being a financial burden to their relatives. "Then along come doctors working for HMOs who are under pressure to cut costs, and the deed is done,“ ... Ralph Nader

"You matter because you are you.You matter to the last moment of your life, and we will do all we can, not only to help you die peacefully, but also to live until you die." ... Dame Cicely Saunders, founder of Hospice

"Those who promote this last, fatal escape as a "right" should remember that such a "right" may quickly become an expectation and, finally, even a "duty" to die. We fear eventually some individuals and families will be forced to put financial concerns above the needs of loved ones." ... Statement against assisted suicide by members of Michigan's Religious Leaders Forum, a group of Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders (5/7/98).

"... like the majority of domestic violence cases, women are the majority of victims in murder suicides by despairing spouses unable to cope with the stress of caregiving. As women statistically have longer life spans than men, they are the most likely targets of physician assisted suicide. The majority of euthanasia advocate Dr. Jack Kevorkian’s victims have been women. If assisted suicide and euthanasia are sanctioned choices, how many women will feel pressured to choose them?" ... Serrin M. Foster, Executive Director, Feminists For Life of America

“To destroy the boundary between healing and killing would mark a radical departure from longstanding legal and medical traditions of our country, posing a threat of unforeseeable magnitude to vulnerable members of our society. Those who represent the interests of elderly persons with disabilities, and persons with AIDS or other terminal illnesses, are justifiably alarmed when some hasten to confer on them the "freedom" to be killed.” ... U.S. Catholic Bishops

"This is a precious possession which we cannot afford to tarnish, but society always is attempting to make the physician into a killer to kill the defective child at birth, to leave the sleeping pills beside the bed of the cancer patient ... It is the duty of society to protect the physicians from such requests.” ... Margaret Mead, anthropologist (quoted in Maurice Levine. Psychiatry and Ethics. George Braziller Publishers, New York, 1972, page 325.)

"I have yet to hear of a set of guidelines for euthanasia which would not lead to terrible abuses even in the opinion of those physicians who are sometimes willing to practice it. Inevitably, this form of ‘therapy’ would spread to situations in which at present it would be unthinkable." ... Jonathan H. Pincus, M.D., Yale University

"If a physician withholds maximum efforts from patients he considers hopelessly ill, he will unavoidably withhold maximum effort from the occasional patient who could have been saved." He reasoned that the only way to be sure a case is hopeless is to try all available therapies and find them of no avail.” ... Lawrence V. Foye, M.D

Condemned German:"But we didn't think it would go that far."American judge:"It went that far the very first time you condemned an innocent human being."... Conversation in the American motion picture "Judgment at Nuremburg."

"And can a man his own quietus make With a bare bodkin?

With daggers, bodkins, bullets, man can makea bruise or break of exit for his life,but is that a quietus, 0 tell me, is it quietus?

Surely not so! for how could murder even self murder,ever a quietus make?

O let us talk of quiet that we know,that we can know, the deep and lovely quiet of a strong heart at peace!"

... “THE SHIP OF DEATH” by D. H. Lawrence

http://www.euthanasia.com/quotationsoneuthanasia.html

Euthanasia Definitions

Euthanasia: the intentional killing by act or omission of a dependent human being for his or her alleged benefit. (The key word here is "intentional". If death is not intended, it is not an act of euthanasia)

Voluntary euthanasia: When the person who is killed has requested to be killed. Non-voluntary: When the person who is killed made no request and gave no

consent. Involuntary euthanasia: When the person who is killed made an expressed wish to the

contrary. Assisted suicide: Someone provides an individual with the information, guidance,

and means to take his or her own life with the intention that they will be used for this purpose. When it is a doctor who helps another person to kill themselves it is called "physician assisted suicide."

Euthanasia By Action: Intentionally causing a person's death by performing an action such as by giving a lethal injection.

Euthanasia By Omission: Intentionally causing death by not providing necessary and ordinary (usual and customary) care or food and water.

What Euthanasia is NOT: There is no euthanasia unless the death is intentionally caused by what was done or not done. Thus, some medical actions that are often labeled "passive euthanasia" are no form of euthanasia, since the intention to take life is lacking. These acts include not commencing treatment that would not provide a benefit to the patient, withdrawing treatment that has been shown to be ineffective, too burdensome or is unwanted, and the giving of high doses of pain-killers that may endanger life, when they have been shown to be necessary. All those are part of good medical practice, endorsed by law, when they are properly carried out.

http://www.euthanasia.com/definitions.html

 Ethics > Euthanasia

Page 1 of 2 Printable version of this page

Euthanasia - The Christian view

Christians are mostly against euthanasia. The arguments are usually based on the beliefs that life is given by God, and that human beings are made in God's image. Some churches also emphasise the importance of not interfering with the natural process of death.

Life is a gift from God

all life is God-given birth and death are part of the life processes which God has

created, so we should respect them therefore no human being has the authority to take the life of any

innocent person, even if that person wants to die

Human beings are valuable because they are made in God's image

human life possesses an intrinsic dignity and value because it is created by God in his own image for the distinctive destiny of sharing in God's own life

o saying that God created humankind in his own image doesn't meant that people actually look like God, but that people have a unique capacity for rational existence that enables them to see what is good and to want what is good

o as people develop these abilities they live a life that is as close as possible to God's life of love

o this is a good thing, and life should be preserved so that people can go on doing this

to propose euthanasia for an individual is to judge that the current life of that individual is not worthwhile

such a judgement is incompatible with recognising the worth and

dignity of the person to be killed therefore arguements based on the quality of life are completely

irrelevant nor should anyone ask for euthanasia for themselves because no-

one has the right to value anyone, even themselves, as worthless

The process of dying is spiritually important, and should not be disrupted

Many churches believe that the period just before death is a profoundly spiritual time

they think it is wrong to interfere with the process of dying, as this would interrupt the process of the spirit moving towards God

All human lives are equally valuableChristians believe that the intrinsic dignity and value of human lives means that the value of each human life is identical. They don't think that human dignity and value are measured by mobility, intelligence, or any achievements in life.

Valuing human beings as equal just because they are human beings has clear implications for thinking about euthanasia:

patients in a persistent vegetative state, although seriously damaged, remain living human beings, and so their intrinsic value remains the same as anyone else's

so it would be wrong to treat their lives as worthless and to conclude that they 'would be better off dead'

patients who are old or sick, and who are near the end of earthly life have the same value as any other human being

people who have mental or physical handicaps have the same value as any other human being

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/ethics/euthanasia/christian.shtml

Quotations by Pope Benedict XVI on Euthanasia

"Freedom to kill is not a true freedom but a tyranny that reduces the human being into slavery." ... May 7, 2005. See Full Article

"Scripture, in fact, clearly excludes every form of the kind of self-determination of human existence that is presupposed in the theory and practice of euthanasia."

"Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion."

"While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to

take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia."

http://www.euthanasia.com/pope2005.html

Catechism of the Catholic Church on Assisted-Suicide

Excerpts from paragraphs 2276 - 2279 on Euthanasia and paragraphs 2280-2283 on Suicide:

#2277 ...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 respec tdue to the living God, his Creator....

#2278 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....

#2279 Even if death is thought imminent, the ordinary care owed to a sick person cannot be legitimately interrupted. The use of painkillers to alleviate the sufferings of the dying, even at the risk of shortening their days, can be morally in conformity with human dignity if death is not willed as either an end or a means, but only foreseen and tolerated as inevitable. Palliative care is a special form of disinterested charity. As such it should be encouraged.

#2280....It is God who remains the sovereign Master of life. We are obliged to accept life gratefully and preserve it for his honor and the salvation of our souls. We are stewards, not owners, of the life God has entrusted to us. It is not ours to dispose of.

#2281 Suicide contradicts the natural inclination of the human being to preserve and perpetuate his life. It is gravely contrary to the just love of self. It likewise offends love of neighbor because it unjustly breaks the ties of solidarity with family, nation, and other human societies to which we continue to have obligations. Suicide is contrary to love for the living God.

Source: Human Life International Internet: www.hli.org

http://www.euthanasia.com/catech.html

Brief Reflections on Euthanasia

By Fr. Frank A. Pavone National Director, Priests for Life

“A "right" is a moral claim. We do not have a claim on death. Rather, death has a claim on us!”

The core evil of euthanasia is that an individual or group of people think they have the right to put someone else to death.

"Killing a human being" is not a very nice concept. To make it more acceptable, therefore some people start playing with the language. They say, for example, that the one who is incurably ill or comatose is a "vegetable". A vegetable? What kind? A cucumber? Carrot?

NO MATTER WHAT THE AILMENT HE/SHE SUFFERS FROM, A HUMAN BEING IS ALWAYS HUMAN, AND ALWAYS HAS A RIGHT TO LIFE WHICH NOBODY, OF ANY PHILOSOPHICAL, POLITICAL, OR RELIGIOUS PERSUASION EVER IS ABLE TO TAKE AWAY. In fact, it is precisely when life is afflicted by weakness and illness that it is all the MORE deserving of our care.”

“Those who push euthanasia (the killing of the seriously ill by act or omission) are all around. Have you met them? Have you heard them on TV and read their articles? If not, the time has come to be aware that they are on the march with their ungodly, death-dealing philosophy, trying to carve it into law.

Central to their utterly false philosophy is the notion that some lives are NOT WORTH LIVING. These lives, they maintain, are more trouble than they are worth. They have too much suffering, and are too much of a burden on the resources of society.

You know, if we were talking about a car, or a typewriter, or some other THING, we could say that when enough things go wrong with it, it becomes more trouble than it's worth. Repairs would be too costly, too involved. Throw it out and get a new one.

But we cannot apply this mindset to HUMAN PERSONS. A person is never more trouble than he/she is worth. Notice, we do not use the pronoun "it" to refer to a human being. There's a reason for that. A person is not a "thing", an "it", an object whose value is to be calculated on some kind of economic cost/benefit analysis scale. A person is worth more than the ENTIRE PHYSICAL UNIVERSE! Ponder that. Human life is of INFINITE VALUE, and this remains true no matter how small, weak, incommunicative, disabled, diseased, or "unproductive" (in the eyes of a materialistic, consumerist society like ours) it may be.

Take up the torch of life. Defend human life from euthanasia. “

7

Many of you have heard of "Living Wills." These are documents by which a person can give in advance a directive to have life-sustaining medical treatment withheld or discontinued at the time of future serious illness, should he or she then be unable to make medical decisions. These living wills are being promoted as necessary for the person to die peacefully and with dignity. HOWEVER, living wills can be harmful rather than helpful. They are unnecessary and dangerous for patients, doctors, and society.

One of the many reasons that we should not get involved with living wills is that the language used is too broad and can be open to a variety of interpretations. This will vary from one document to another. But a living will distributed by the Concern for Dying organization asks that the signer "not be kept alive by medications" or "artificial means." What does that mean? An aspirin is "medication," is it not? Drinking through a straw is "artificial." People can construe meanings for these words which the signer of the document never intended.

There are other serious reasons not to make a living will, which are examined below.

8

"Living Wills" are unnecessary and dangerous. There are many reasons; here I will share one more.

According to an authoritative brochure on Living Wills printed by the Metropolitan New York Right to Life Foundation, Living Wills are unnecessary because they propose to give rights which patients and doctors already possess. To quote the brochure, "People already have the right to make informed consent decisions telling their family and physicians how they want to be treated if and when they can no longer make decisions for themselves. Doctors are already free to withhold or withdraw useless procedures in terminal cases that provide no benefit to the patient. Some people fear that medical technology will be used to torture them in their final days. But it is more likely that the 'medical heroics' people fear are the very treatments that will make possible a more comfortable, less painful death."

Catholics must follow the moral teachings of the Church in these matters and should consult a priest in specific cases. But by all means avoid "Living Wills." More on this to come.

 

9

Can you predict the future? Specifically, can you tell me what form of sickness or disease you will be afflicted with in the years ahead? Can you tell me what kind of treatment you will need?

Of course not, says common sense. But common sense is not as common as we might think. The making of a "Living Will" presupposes that we know what kind of medical treatments we will want to use or avoid in the future. It speaks about treatments before we even know the disease; it turns a future option into a present decision.

As I have explained above, not every medical treatment is always obligatory. But to figure out which treatments are obligatory, morally speaking, and which are only optional, one must know the medical facts of the case. These facts are then examined in the light of the moral principles involved. But to try to make that decision in advance is to act without all the necessary information. Moreover, to make that decision legally binding by means of a formal document is really putting the cart before the horse. It is not morally justified.

Living Wills are both unnecessary and dangerous.

 

“Some years ago, the winner of a Pro-Life Essay Contest sponsored by the Archdiocese of New York was Anne Marie O'Halloran, from Maria Regina High School in Hartsdale. Her topic was euthanasia. Let me share with you some of her own words:

"One of the highest values this country holds is freedom. This has led to a situation in which individuals believe they have the right to live completely as they desire. Human beings are seen as limitless. They have the right to decide how they want to live and how they should die....Another quality prized by our culture is power. We believe, or rather, we would like to believe, that we can control anything and everything to ensure a safe and comfortable lifestyle....Our society has created a world in which it is always possible and always considered right to take the easy way out of problems, suffering and death. That way is completely against the example Jesus set for us; it is against Christian values. We, as Christians, must form a counter-culture. We do not pray for an easy, free or painless life and death. Rather we should pray for strength to sustain and understand the life God gave us to live."

May more young men and women come to see what this student sees and says so well, that we are NOT the absolute masters of life and death. Only God is. May His gift of life be respected.”