#morethanredandblue: Part 3

Here is Part 3 of my Theology on Tap talk, More Than Red and Blue.

You can read the explanation and Part 1 of the talk here and Part 2 here.

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Let’s look first at physician-assisted suicide. This is one that is starting to get bigger and bigger. Recent movements in Canada and the UK pushed to legalize it, and in the US, California’s new law legalizing it has come into effect this summer, joining Oregon, Washington, and Vermont as states with laws that sanction physician-assisted suicide. Physician-assisted suicide is when a doctor prescribes a patient a lethal dose of a sedative, which the patient then self-administers at their own discretion to end their life. The legal protocols require multiple physicians’ assessments, oral and written requests from the patient, waiting periods, and the full independence and autonomy of patient to decide and self-administer the prescription, among other things. Oregon has had the law in place for the longest, and over 100 people utilize it each year in that state.

So thinking in terms of CST themes, let’s consider solidarity. As we try to be mindful of all people as our brothers and sisters, we can unite ourselves with our suffering brothers and sisters and with Christ on the cross, who suffered in human form. Suffering can remind us of our frailty and bring us to a humility that helps us realize our dependence on others and on God. This process invites us to re-understand not just how to give our love but especially how to receive it. In this, we can find the redemptive potential of suffering. Our efforts should be to eliminate the root causes of suffering, but should not necessarily treat suffering itself as an inherent evil.

Let’s consider the Dignity and Value of Human Life. In terms of medical ethics, this theme calls us to pursue ordinary means of medicine and health-care with complete commitment for improving and sustaining life. However, when it comes to extraordinary means, we can look at such care and consider the risk-reward and cost-benefit implications. If a life is only being sustained by artificial means, it is permissible to remove that support and allow the natural end to come; however, we cannot take an active step to end that life, such as physician-assisted suicide entails.

On the whole, it is not our place to decide on matters of life and death, so we must support life with full dignity and value until its natural end, upholding the consistent ethic of life. We can allow that end to come, if extraordinary means are all that delay it, but we cannot be actualizers of death. It is important that we leave room for God’s grace to flow in final conversations, encounters, lessons, and revelations that come between all involved at the end of life. These are difficult considerations, so pastorally, we must remain compassionate and understanding of the challenges of this cross when it comes to individuals and their families and friends as they engage with end-of-life decisions.

To synthesize these points, when it comes to physician-assisted suicide, the calls of Christ in our social teaching – especially Solidarity and the Dignity and Value of Human Life – add up to say that we can morally remove life-sustaining medicine to allow natural death to come, but we cannot take an active step to end life.

Coming up next in Part 4: universal health-care with the Affordable Care Act, the Health & Human Services Mandate, and artificial birth control.