Life Support Not Obligatory

For someone who objected that the author of the last article should "lighten up a little" with regard to life support, i.e. not be so down on it:

I see your perspective on the whole subject now a little better - but I think you're getting the wrong message (for a good reason). In fact, you're catching this debate in the middle.

Here's what's been happening - in the Netherlands, Sweden, the UK, and now quite strongly in North America, the "Right to Die" movement has been promoting euthanasia and assisted suicide as a "basic human right." That means that we should all have the right to determine how we end our own life and be able to enlist physicians' help to end it. When someone is not "capable," physicians, hospital ethics boards, and "substitute decision makers" should be able to decide when the plug should be pulled. This was the case with Terri Schiavo, where her husband and judges and doctors decided she shouldn't live anymore. This movement is now gaining a lot of steam, since the principle guiding most people's thought on the matter is that the extrinsic "quality of life" (QOL in the medical literature) determines the intrinsic dignity or worth of a life.

Christianity (and natural law) recognizes the intrinsic dignity of man, who is made in the image and likeness of God. It understands that God, the author and beginning of life, has also the authority over the end of life. Now, a recognition of this authority of God over our life and death has to coexist with an understanding of our duty of stewardship over our bodies. Hence, given different circumstances, we seek more, or less, avidly to preserve our life in the face of illness and human frailty.

(For instance, a 35 year-old father of four might pursue aggressive cancer treatment or choose to be maintained on life support while trying "last resort" medical treatments for a disease that an 85 year old widower might not choose to pursue.)

Hence, also, we recognize that we cannot kill someone, by starvation or otherwise, to end what we determine to be a "life not worth living anymore." Instead, for dying patients or incurable suffering ones, we try our best to alleviate suffering, comfort, and help them see their dignity and understand God's plan for them.

However, the media and the majority of our culture today interpret this Christian understanding as inherently restrictive. "Are you saying we can't choose how and when to die? Do you mean we have to be hooked up to feeding tubes and respirators and IVs until we are absolutely dead?"

We reply that, no, human dignity does not necessarily that we seek always and agressively to prolong and preserve human life, which, after all, is only a brief prelude to eternal life. We just emphasize that no one has the right to end their own or another's life intentionally.

At this point, you walk into the debate, hearing us replying to the culture: "You don't HAVE to be hooked up to life support!" But recognize the objection it is meant to answer. We are emphasizing that no one is morally bound to choose to go on life support to prolong their life, which is what we're being charged with. We certainly don't say that life support isn't great and wonderful and necessary in many cases and good in many cases etc.

What is really at stake is the opposite: people want the right to end their own lives, to have doctors help them do it, and help them end the lives of their "loved ones" when they think it's time for them to go. With Christ and His Church, we affirm throughout the ages, life is good, life is dignified, life is a gift of God, life is not our own.