By allowing euthanasia, we support meaningless deaths

Regarding the recent death of Dr Death, aka Jack Kevorkian:

Like Kevorkian, our present culture considers suffering the epitome of evil, fostering the great temptation to resolve it by eliminating it at the root: hastening death so that it occurs at the moment considered most suitable.

In Christian teaching, however, suffering is, in fact, a participation in Christ’s Passion.

Intentionally causing one’s own death is a rejection of God’s sovereignty and loving plan. It is the denial of a natural instinct to live, a flight from the duties of justice and charity owed to one’s neighbour and to society.

The pleas of the gravely ill who sometimes request death should not be understood as implying a true desire for euthanasia; in fact, they are almost always a case of an anguished plea for help and love. True compassion leads to sharing another’s pain, not killing the person whose suffering we cannot bear. What any sick person needs, besides medical care, is love.

Alas, contemporary culture fosters a certain Promethean attitude which leads people to take decisions concerning them into their own hands. Yet in cases of euthanasia, the individual is overcome and crushed by a death deprived of any meaning or hope. It is thus senseless and inhumane and should be opposed in all its forms.

 

Paul Kokoski

Canada

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