Last month, I attended a symposium on palliative care and assisted suicide, sponsored by the Canadian bishops, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Tag: assisted suicide
March for Life in Washington, D.C., continues for 47 years
To the editor:
January 24, 2020, marked the 47th Annual March for Life in Washington, D.C. The theme was “Pro Life Is Pro Woman.”
To be or not to be — parsing the implications of suicide
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In recent years, we have witnessed a growing tendency to promote suicide as a way of resolving end-stage suffering.
Physician-assisted suicide is now legal in a handful of states, and a number of other jurisdictions are considering laws to legalize the practice.
Assisted suicide: destroying my freedom in the name of freedom?
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In an August 2015 column in The Washington Post, George F. Will argued in favor of physician-assisted suicide, summing up his perspective this way: “There is nobility in . . . affirming at the end the distinctive human dignity of autonomous choice.”
His conclusion, however, raises several important questions: Shouldn’t death-dealing actions directed against ourselves be seen as a deep repudiation of our autonomy, insofar as suicide eliminates our personal freedom once and for all?
Tale of two dying persons
How sad it was to hear of the death of Brittany Maynard, the 29-year-old woman who ended her own life on November 1 using Oregon’s assisted suicide law.
Maynard suffered greatly from terminal brain cancer, and we can understand her wish to stop her pain and suffering.
More hopeful path
However, the story of another young person who is also facing death shows, I believe, a more hopeful way to face death.
A Catholic News Service article reported on Philip Johnson, a 30-year-old Catholic seminarian in the Diocese of Raleigh, N.C., who is facing the same disease as Maynard. He wrote a poignant essay in October responding to Maynard’s decision to end her own life.
Who gets to decide when to let go of life?
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As a child I idolized my grandfather. One of my fondest memories is of him taking us to a neighborhood restaurant that had a little juke box in each booth. He would give my sisters and me a few quarters and we’d flip to the oldies to play Grandpa’s favorites.
From time to time I still hear those classics playing in my memory from “Moon River” and “Doctor Zhivago” to “Love is a Many Splendored Thing.”