South Texas Catholic (Corpus Christi, Tex.), Vol. 31, No. 14, Ed. 1 Friday, April 8, 1988 Page: 4 of 16
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Life Issues Forum
Euthanasia: From theory to practice
(Editor’s note: The following is the first install-
ment of Life Issues Forum, a biweekly pro-life col-
umn focusing on mtal issues of our day—euthanasia,
assisted suicide, abortion, teenage pregnancy, capital
punishment and more. Regular authors and guest col-
umnists will be featured. The columns are made
available through the Bishops' Committee for Pro-Life
Activities.)
By Cardinal Joseph Bernardin
Archdiocese of Chicago
None of us likes to be proved wrong, but
sometimes there is greater sadness in being proved
right.
Since the Supreme Court legalized abortion in
1973, many people, including myself, have warned
that acceptance of abortion would ultimately con-
front our society with the question of legalized
euthanasia. Many factors suggest that the time to
resolve this question has come.
For some time now, scholarly publications and the
popular media have been presenting suicide and
euthanasia in a sympathetic manner. Today physi-
cians in the Netherlands who give lethal injections to
their dying patients are exempted from prosecution,
and this has been proposed as a model for the United
States.
An American physician’s account of how he
allegedly took the life of a young cancer patient
recendy appeared in a prestigious medical journal,
and the journal has thus far refused to release the
doctor’s name to law enforcement authorities. And in
Noyember, California voters will likely face a ballot
initiative sponsored by the Hemlock Society which
would allow doctors to kill their dying patients with
lethal injections.
Hemlock officials claim many people support this
trend because they fear being aggressively over-
treated should they become seriously ill. No doubt
this is true. But many people do not realize that ter-
minal patients already have the legal right to refuse
unwanted measures that prolong dying. In Califor-
nia, Hemlock has actually offered its initiative as an
amendment to existing state laws protecting this
right. What is new about Hemlock’s amendment is
that patients or their proxies could demand a lethal
drug overdose instead of the withdrawal of extraor-
dinary life-sustaining treatment.
Behind the drive for active euthanasia is a
philosophy which reaches beyond withdrawal of
useless or burdensome treatment to classify life itself
as useless or burdensome under certain conditions.
In our society, the desire for comfort and for rational
control over one’s life have become so paramount
that many see human life as devoid of meaning when
it involves intense suffering or helplessness.
As Catholic Christians, we affirm the dignity and
sacredness of every human life in all its cir-
cumstances. We also are called to see suffering and
helplessness as appeals for compassion and support.
As Pope John Paul II reminded us during his recent
visit to the United States, it is in the helpless person
in need of our care—including the person dying of
AIDS or other terminal illness—that we sec the face
of Christ.
Our obligation is to heal human suffering if we
can, but never by destroying the person who suffers.
We also believe that suffering, though a great
mystery, has a potential for personal growth.
Moreover, seen in the light of the Cross, suffering
can bring a person into closer intimacy with the
crucified Christ.
The Hemlock agenda is not reasonable even by
secular standards. The authors of our Declaration of
Independence were wise to list the inalienable rights
of human beings as they did: first life, then liberty,
then the pursuit of happiness. The euthanasia cam-
paign turns this on its head, so that an inability to
pursue earthly happiness becomes a pretext for the
liberty to destroy life. This campaign is misguided
because life is our most fundamental right, the condi-
tion of all other rights and freedoms. If life itself is
continually diminished in value, other rights will
ultimately lose their meaning.
This is a lesson we should have learned from the
euthanasia campaign in Germany earlier in this cen-
tury, which began as a misguided effort to serve
humanitarian ideals long before the Nazi era. We
should not invoke Nazi Germany too readily in this
discussion, and we must not forget the distinctive
horror of the Holocaust as an effort to eliminate the
Jews of Europe.
But we must also not forget what Robert Jay Lif-
ton tells us in his book The Nazi Doctors. “At the
heart of the Nazi enterprise,” he writes, “is the
destruction of the boundary between healing and kill-
ing.” Once we cross this fundamental boundary in
treating the terminally ill patient, it will seem logical
to ask why physician-assisted suicide should be
denied other categories of suffering humanity.
As a society we must reaffirm the authentic goals of
medicine: to heal the sick, to respect and sustain
human life, and to care for those who cannot cure. If
we depart from this goal and train healers to become
killers, we will degrade our own humanity.
W:
Guest Column
The Catholic Church—a global view
By Father Randy Majek
The byword these days among economists, social
engineers and political scientists is the word
“global.” The word is tied to a macro-world view
that few political and economic realities can be seen
in isolation.
A recent event which exemplifies such interrela-
tionships between global entities is found in the Dow
Jones free fall of Oct. 19. The one-day, 508-stock-
point plummet would set into motion a series of stock
market collapses throughout the world. Markets
from London to Tokyo to Johannesberg would not be
spared from the repercussions of the U.S. market
dive.
Events such as the surrounding "Black and Blue
Monday” are reminding us that the world in which
we live is a small one indeed. However, it seems that
many of us are a little less than “global” in our
perspective when viewing issues concerning the
Church.
In striking up conservations with Catholics within
our diocese, there is no paucity of information when
you ask an active parishioner, “How are things in
your parish?" Most parishioners can give you infor-
mation as detailed and diverse as the cost of parish
bulletins and the odometer reading on the pastor’s
car.
However, ask a parishioner his or her thoughts on
the pope’B recent encyclical concerning social justice
and watch a dynamic mood swing from dull
disinterest to apoplexic apathy.
' Certainly, we would feel disheartened if world-
view parishioners expressed concern about the role of
the Church in Central America and the need to sup-
port Catholic missionary activities while at the same
time failing to support the poor and homeless in their
city. It is true, indeed, that social justice begins at
home.
At the same time, we must acknowledge that if the
Church is to be truly Catholic, that is universal, then
we must continually remind ourselves of the need to
look beyond our parochial boundaries and into the
larger world arena in which the Church finds herself.
An awareness of the Church as a global entity is a
beginning. The next step is to begin to respond to the
global needs of the Church in a tangible fashion. We
can start to support Catholic agencies or collections
such as Catholic Relief Services, the Propagation of
the Faith or Peter’s Pence. If one hasn’t heard of
these programs, then gathering information concern-
ing them may be a way to begin that journey to a
more global Catholic consciousness.
It should be our prayer during this Easter season,
which bespeaks the universality of Christ’s salvific
presence, that we begin to reflect on the issues and
needs of the Church which go beyond the boundaries
of our parish and diocese and affect the Church
throughout the world.
It is then that we warrant the name which our
Saviour and the world offers us—Catholic.
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Freeman, Robert E. South Texas Catholic (Corpus Christi, Tex.), Vol. 31, No. 14, Ed. 1 Friday, April 8, 1988, newspaper, April 8, 1988; Corpus Christi, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth840796/m1/4/: accessed June 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; .