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A devout Catholic lady wrote to me recently that her husband who has ALS is getting worse. ALS is a debilitating disease of the neuro-muscular system (by the way, the same illness which Steven Hawking has) which renders a person paralyzed. Her husband, continued the lady, now is having difficulty swallowing and she asked me if I would pray for him to die soon, as it would be more humane.

More humane for whom? ALS does not render the person in pain and an NG tube would take care of the swallowing difficulty. I feel very much for this lady, even more so when I think that they, like my husband and I, are a long term marriage of more than 30 years. But then, I also must ask myself, why would his death (and departure from her and the family) be more desirable than his being with them a while longer. This I cannot answer. I asked my husband about this and his reaction was that perhaps this lady was buying into the society of death's solution i.e. when a person is unable to 'do for themself', it's time for them to die. For would not widowhood with its abject lonliness be even worse than having his company, albeit in a disabled condition? And how much of his wishing to die (if he wishes it so) is depression which could be helped?

Bishop Blanchette, while totally paralyzed from ALS (and far more disabled than my acquaintance's husband) was joyful until he died and then, he died a very serene death. They figure that in the two years when he was totally bedfast and wrote to hundreds of people around the world, using a system of eye blinks to dictate, Bishop Blanchette ministered to far more people than he did in 30 years of his ministry as a Bishop.

The mother of another acquaintance of mine was in her late sixties and needed dialysis. She became depressed as it was taking longer than she hoped to find a kidney donor. She talked of death but received no help for her depression. Finally, my friend and her father and siblings decided to help their mom's depression. They stopped giving her dialysis and she died five days later, a painful death of uremic poisoning.

If God takes a person when He AND the person are ready, should we even think of a person's demise before it is God's Will? In truth, although I am remembering both my friend and her husband with ALS in my prayers, I can never pray for someone's death.

When a devout Catholic buys into death as any kind of solution (and we are bombarded with this particular 'solution' in all sorts of incidious ways - most movies solve the problem of the 'bad guy' not by sending him to prison but often by killing him) - when devout Catholics buy into this, it's scary. It's almost like a creeping illness which is taking hold of us slowly. And this is the REAL danger, we face. Not the laws like Oregon's law but the attitudes of the society of death.

Let us Catholics pray to lead others into a new society - one of life and hope because life and hope come, not from circumstances but from a close relationship with God and His Grace lighting up our lives.