A reader writes:
Today, after reading your article in the National Catholic Register, I was going to send you a further question, but I think that I just found the answer in this story.
The video is about winning the lottery and giving it all away to charity, but what impressed me was the written story that followed, about the death of Ms. Large after a long struggle with cancer. I was going to ask you: I am now 69 years old, my physical health is pretty good, and my mental health (depression) has made great progress in the last few years. However, supposing that some 10 years or more from now, I was found to have a terminal illness, such as cancer. Getting older, no matter how well my illness would be treated, I would be dying a few years later anyway. Then, would it matter if I decided, not to terminate my life, of course, but to forego most treatments, since they would not significantly add to my life on earth? Would that be suicide, or just letting the natural end of my life take its course?
Of course, now, after reading about Ms. Large’s last years, I am having second thoughts. And I thought that you might be interested to know about this too.
Here’s what Pope John Paul II says in Evangelium Vitae:
Euthanasia must be distinguished from the decision to forego so-called “aggressive medical treatment”, in other words, medical procedures which no longer correspond to the real situation of the patient, either because they are by now disproportionate to any expected results or because they impose an excessive burden on the patient and his family. In such situations, when death is clearly imminent and inevitable, one can in conscience “refuse forms of treatment that would only secure a precarious and burdensome prolongation of life, so long as the normal care due to the sick person in similar cases is not interrupted”. Certainly there is a moral obligation to care for oneself and to allow oneself to be cared for, but this duty must take account of concrete circumstances. It needs to be determined whether the means of treatment available are objectively proportionate to the prospects for improvement. To forego extraordinary or disproportionate means is not the equivalent of suicide or euthanasia; it rather expresses acceptance of the human condition in the face of death.
In modern medicine, increased attention is being given to what are called “methods of palliative care”, which seek to make suffering more bearable in the final stages of illness and to ensure that the patient is supported and accompanied in his or her ordeal. Among the questions which arise in this context is that of the licitness of using various types of painkillers and sedatives for relieving the patient’s pain when this involves the risk of shortening life. While praise may be due to the person who voluntarily accepts suffering by forgoing treatment with pain-killers in order to remain fully lucid and, if a believer, to share consciously in the Lord’s Passion, such “heroic” behaviour cannot be considered the duty of everyone. Pius XII affirmed that it is licit to relieve pain by narcotics, even when the result is decreased consciousness and a shortening of life, “if no other means exist, and if, in the given circumstances, this does not prevent the carrying out of other religious and moral duties”. In such a case, death is not willed or sought, even though for reasonable motives one runs the risk of it: there is simply a desire to ease pain effectively by using the analgesics which medicine provides. All the same, “it is not right to deprive the dying person of consciousness without a serious reason”: as they approach death people ought to be able to satisfy their moral and family duties, and above all they ought to be able to prepare in a fully conscious way for their definitive meeting with God.
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As a healthcare provider, I’m really wondering about the form of assisted suicide known as smoking. Why is there no organized campaign against this? Certainly it causes death and suffering to the tune of 400,000 people/year. And businesses knowingly engage in the manufacture of a product that will cause death. Why isn’t this akin to abortion? This distinction of life at the margin…the dying person with a few weeks to live, vs the business of selling a death causing product…seems to be so artificial. But the suffering is not. If abortion should be outlawed, why not cigarette manufacturing? This may seem like it’s muddying the waters but the fact is…and it IS a FACT…smoking CAUSES death. Why no prolife outcry over this?
To Bob: Many things may speed our deaths. Smoking may (or may not, as George Burns and others showed, living into their nineties and beyond after years of smoking). Alcohol can lead to deaths of both the drinkers and the ones they kill while driving drunk. There is a long list of foods and habits (too much fat, not enough exercise, too much sugar, not enough vegetables, etc) that may hasten death. Are we to outlaw everything that may be misused? While the evidence is heavy against smoking, there are a few hints that some may benefit from the relaxation it brings. To equate poor living habits with directly killing a human being is illogical and dangerous. We need to avoid making so many things illegal (witness abolition of alcohol and certain drugs) that we only make people comfortable with breaking laws and relying on regulations to curb their own lack of self control.
Catholic teaching on end of life care includes nutrition and hydration which is not considered extraordinary care.
@Bob - “As a healthcare provider, I’m really wondering about the form of assisted suicide known as smoking. Why is there no organized campaign against this? Certainly it causes death and suffering to the tune of 400,000 people/year. And businesses knowingly engage in the manufacture of a product that will cause death. Why isn’t this akin to abortion?” There is a very big difference. A smoker makes the decision to smoke. He/she must also deal with any health issues of that decision despite being warned of the dangers of smoking including losing ones life to heart disease or cancer. Abortion, on the other hand, is the willful killing of an innocent baby. The child has not made this decision; has not done anything wrong and his or her life is taken by someone else.
bob,
Smoking, on average, only takes a few years off the end of your life. If smoking makes you die at 65 instead of 75, that isn’t assisted suicide. See, for instance, these stats: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/010622/dq010622a-eng.htm. If smoking only marginally reduces life expectancy to 65, and significantly reduces life expectancy past 80. Seeing as basically any treatment past 80 is aggressive medical treatment (since it will only add a small amount of time to life expectancy), it’s unclear how smoking should be considered morally different than refusing care past 80.
Also, there’s a difference between doing something that on average makes you more likely to die, and something that you know will make you die and that you intend as such.Tobacco, wine, red meat, bacon, childbirth, driving, walking, etc. all carry with them risks. If you’re driving and, through no moral failing of your own, you kill someone, that’s not murder, even though we all know driving carries with it a risk that you might run over someone. Likewise, childbirth carries with it a risk of birth defects, childhood accidents, and the eventual, certain death of the child. The fact that something carries risk doesn’t make it equivalent to suicide, and such fuzzy thinking helps lead to greater acceptance of abortion for disabled children or if there’s any threat to the mother’s life. Life is full of risks that make you and others on average more likely to die. Get over it.
Without us introducing extraneous issues when discussing euthanasia, I believe the Teaching of Blessed John Paul II, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church on this matter, is quite clear to everyone. My understanding is that Euthanasia is a selfish decision made to extinguish a person’s life for whatever reasons, instead of allowing God to take charge. He is the Giver or Life and He only must decide when to end it. The world witnessed the heroic Blessed Pope John II accept God’s Will as we all accompanied him on his final hours on this earth. True, not everyone can be so Grace-blessed by God. But I sincerely believe - being two months shy of 73 years and widow these 17 years - that when my time comes, I would wish to be allowed to remain conscious and lucid, no matter how much pain I am suffering, so as to prepare myself in accordance with my Catholic Faith, to meet my Creator. Drugs which would rob me of my consciousness or lucidity, even if reducing my pain, I would gladly forego. When my late husband was hospitalized with Cancer of the Liver and a decision was made to transfer him to the Hospice, he chose - and I agreed - that he goes home instead. The Doctor warned me the final days would be very nasty and I was given Morphine which I was explained would manage his very acute pain. However, his is a miracle case, because when we celebrated Holy Mass at home, after Holy Communion, his pain went away. He died peacefully in my arms three days later.
Consider the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne Sacred Heart Home here in Philly. “Over the past 100 plus years, the Sisters have lovingly served the special end-of-life needs of our patients and their family members” only AFTER the ailing declining soul has signed a DNR, ie surrendered autonomy over their own “number of days” to the Lord’s reckoning:
http://www.sacredheartphila.org/sacredhearthomeapplication.pdf
From Wikipedia:
“Euthanasia conducted with the consent of the patient is termed voluntary euthanasia. Active voluntary euthanasia is legal in Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Passive voluntary euthanasia is legal throughout the U.S. per Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health. When the patient brings about his or her own death with the assistance of a physician, the term assisted suicide is often used instead. Assisted suicide is legal in Switzerland and the U.S. states of Oregon, Washington and Montana.”
It appears that the opinion of your Pope does not match some actual laws.
“they ought to be able to prepare in a fully conscious way for their definitive meeting with God.”
This seems to be based on an assertion for which there is no “evidence”.
Mike McCants, I am very sorry but I must disappoint you. Any Civil Law which is contrary to God’s Divine Law is totally unacceptable. May I humbly remind you that the most horrid and inhuman Law in South Africa of Apartheid was Legal. Was is OK? Of course NOT. It was an oppressive,cruel and callous to the extreme. An African was treated worse than a wild animal and their lives were dispensed with summarily. There are many more World Powers who abused the sanctify of life throughout history which are now extinct. In the same way, any Human Law that allows taking away of one’s life for whatever reason is against Divine Law, an insult to God and an abuse of the human dignity. I am forced to repeat myself and state categorically that God is the Author of Life and only He, and He alone has the right to take it away. To try and state it is OK to kill - whether it is the unborn babies or the old and sick - because mankind has kicked God out of their lives and we no longer value or respect the sanctity of life - will never make it O.K. even if man has passed those wicked Laws to sanction these murders
Assisted suicide is dangerously wrong. I understand that our society does not want suffering. But it is God who gave life and His to take when He is ready - we are never to take our own lives or to be involved with encouraging others to do so.
How can we expect that if we help in ending our lives or others we will not be held accountable? The world we head for after this life is filled with Holiness and Justice - it is not at all like this life. We are held accoutable to every minute, second of our actions on earth after we die.
The answer is to Trust in God. Learn this Chaplet and say it for the Dying - with the dying if you can. It is the answer to those that are dying, and to each of us, from a Savior who Suffered greater than any of us will ever know. When said sincerely, it replaces God’s Anger and Justice with Mercy. How do we know? Because His Merciful Son gave it to us through St. Faustina. Learn about it and say it sincerely—you will find the answers you need.
God Bless.
http://www.chapletofdivinemercy.net/
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