Catholics used to describe such an end as a 'good and happy death'. In that sense, Catholics are keen on euthanasia - which means 'good death', because while we may require purification after death, our long term vision is nothing more or less than the Beatific Vision of God Himself. That's a good death.
A bad death is the one in which a person dies in a state of mortal sin, unrepentant. Those who die in such a state, according to the Church's teaching, have their state fixed in rejection of God and spend eternity eternally separated from Him in a place we know as Hell.
So, what would constitute an ugly death? Well, actually the ugly death is every death, since death is the worst possible thing anyone can imagine. It is the separation of the soul from the body. It is the end of man's time in this World - the only World to which we are accustomed. A man may, possibly, go through a life knowing few people, he can cut himself off from all social contact if he wills, but he knows the World, for it is all he has known. The other side of the veil, to man, is unknown, and it is the unknown that strikes terror and dread into the soul of man. The end of temporal existence is a horror.
And even God, Himself, not only knows this by virtue of his omniscience, but because the second Person of the Trinity experienced it when He became Man and 'suffered death and was buried'. God, in Jesus Christ, knows the terrible reality of facing death in all its reality. Few, if anyone, would maintain that death is a good thing. Objectively, death is a bad thing - even an evil - despite the fact that it is the just penalty incurred by man in the aftermath of the Fall.
So, if death, it is universally agreed, is a 'bad thing', then why would anyone advocate either suicide or encourage or abett the death of themselves or another? If death, terrible as it is, is an accepted part of human experience, then surely we human beings would desire that death be postponed or that life be honoured or cherished as long as it is possible. Why should anyone desire to hasten death, if it is the least attractive of all human experiences?
Euthanasia enthusiasts, or 'assisted dying' advocates argue that because human suffering, illness, and pain are so horrendous, that a person should be able to choose death over life with an incurable or debilitating disease or illness, or a condition that leads a person to a point at which their life is 'no longer worth living' or a life which is no longer worthy of being called a human life, pointing at the perceived loss of dignity that many conditions bring about.
Yet, hitherto the 21st century, human societies, largely, have held that while sickness, illness, pain, dementia, disability and the range of sufferings which afflict the human race are evils, the worst of all evils is death itself. The idea that the best possible solution to weakness, sickness, illness, disease, suffering and the loss of perceived dignity or purpose, or the ability to be 'productive', or some human imperfection is death has historically been anaethama to the West. The only way in which death has been prescribed as a solution to humanity's ills has been as punishment for a terrible crime. This is true - that is - until Germany became the first country to legalise voluntary euthanasia under the rule of one Adolf Hitler. Aside from this, no other culture or community that has embraced suicide as integral to its philosophy has been widely condemned as the result of an either religiously motivated or pathologically-motivated cult.
So, why should it be considered that the movement in the United Kingdom advocating 'assisted suicide' as the answer to human suffering is any different to the suicide cults which have preceded it, or the voluntary euthanasia programme of Nazi Germany, that paved the way for a less voluntary euthanasia programme of which the World recoils in horror?
The argument proposed in favour of assisted suicide, by such public figures as Baroness Warnock, Lord Falconer and a growing range of celebrities including Terry Pratchett, isthat human beings have the 'right to die'. And who in their 'right mind' could disagree with that? If there is most peole agree with it is the notion that human beings are endowed with certain 'rights'. Some would suggest that these rights come from a Creator, while others would suggest some other source - for example - a benevolent and wise State. And who, indeed, could possibly argue against the 'right to die'? The very phrase the 'right to die' has become a cry for freedom and emancipation from a State that refuses its citizens autonomy over its own personal property - our lives.
Yet, no Churchman, no serious Churchman could argue against the 'right to die', since it is a right that comes to us merely be being born into this World. What someone could question, however, is whether anyone has the right to choose when they die.
Despite the fact that death is the most feared of human experiences, precisely because it represents an unknown state as the end of existence as we know it, perversely is the very reason why advertising it as a 'choice' can be made so appealing. Since because the hour and manner of our death, with the suffering that precedes it, is so frightening, and because it is something over which we humans have no control, if we can at least control one aspect of death - the timing - then it provides us with an illusion of safety, security and controlthat we do not have if we allow it to occur naturally.
And, futher, if we can convince ourselves that the manner and hour of our death are matters of our own choosing - that it can be controlled - then such a 'service' as 'assisted suicide' can even be sold to us, as it has been, most notably in Switzerland at its notorious Dignitas clinics. And being 'sold' it is, under the advertisement 'dignity in dying', a phrase to which we shall return later. But let us first consider where we are.
In order for us to be convinced that we can procure an 'assisted suicide' in good conscience, because such a service we consider our 'right', then we first have to believe that the timing of our own death is our choice. We have, too, to be convinced that our life is our possession. 'It's my life' to do with 'what I choose' is the oft heard phrase.
Catholic theology does not prescribe that as human beings we have no autonomy over our actions or lives. Society is still impressed, for example, by those who risk their lives to safe others. To do such a thing is considered still to be heroic - to show selfless love in risking or laying down your life for another. If a man pushes another man out of the way of a bus and himself is killed then he has sacrificed his life for that of another in order to defend a human life. Similarly, Christ said 'nobody takes my life away from me,' but that 'I lay it down of my own free will'. Human beings have autonomy over their affairs by virtue of our free will. So, we see, then, that the Church has no objection to the idea that we are in possession of our own lives.
But if we are to say that ownership of human life belongs to us as individuals, then we must ask the question: to whom does this life belong after death? It may be 'my life' now, but is it 'my life' after the moment of 'my death', since I no longer exist in the body? Like all human possessions, life, whether you believe in God, or not, is surely only on loan. The Catholic Church posits that, like all human possessions, whether it be an antique, a family heirloom, a favourite picture or a book, life too belongs to a person until death. Like any other possession, ownership of life must pass from the current owner onto another who is in receipt of it.
Whatever way you look at it, we can say 'It's my life' while we are living, but the claim loses all sense and meaning when we are dead since we can no longer claim ownership of even the clothes we are wearing, or the clock on the wall that tells of the time of our death. The clock will remain perhaps far long after we have been there. Perhaps the clock will tell the right time for many of its owners until the End of Time itself, but we? We shall have long gone. Even by objective standards, anyone would think that the clock is more important than a human life since it may well last and be treasured on earth for longer - far longer - than not just the person who owned it, but the memory of a person himself in the hearts of men.
The clock may be passed onto a relative or a third party in this World, but a human life can be passed onto nobody in this World. So, after death, if we can no longer say, 'It's my life to do with as I will', then to whom does ownership of this human life pass? The Catholic Church would say: to the God who made it - to the God who redeemed it - to the God who gave that individual the free will to either cherish it and honour it, or, conversely to dishonour it and to destroy it.
Further, the claim that 'it is my life to do with as I will' is given greater force and gravity by a sober assessment of the statement, since the possibility exists that the one who makes the claim does so knowing that something within himself is immortal. For if I say, 'It is my body, it is my life to do with as I will' and do not believe that something within me is immortal then I appear as a fool, since those around me know full well that while my life is my possession, the lease expires upon my death. It only makes logical sense if I say it in the knowledge that something within me belongs to me, is indeed mine, forever and that wherever it is that I go after death, I will take that 'I', that 'my' with me to that place. In order that 'its my life' make sense I have to believe I am immortal in some sense or that something within me is infinite, despite the fact that my bodily existence is finite. Therefore, the statement that it is 'my life, my body' only makes logical sense if I believe that it is also 'my immortal soul'. Now, you see the distinction, because while a life belongs to a man in this World and all life goes out of a man upon death and returns to his Creator, the Author of Life, the soul too belongs to a man, a soul which either lives forever happily with God in eternity after a period of purgation, or does not.
So, we see now that the claim to assisted suicide upon the grounds that 'its my life' is not so simple as it first appears, when we assume that we can claim it, in some instrinsic sense, forever, and that it is only when we do so that our bold claim makes sound sense. Yet, it is precisely at this point that our argument that we can procure this service of 'assisted suicide' falls down, since if I have a soul, a soul that lives forever, then I would be wise to do what I can to preserve my soul and place my death trustfully in the hands of my Creator, for He has entrusted this gift of life to me for His service and glory. For me to destroy that which He has made, even my own self, who I may either love or loathe, is to destroy that great gift of life which He gave me. Even were we not to have the Ten Commandments which help us very much in this matter - this decision of life and death - then it would be wise for me to pray fervently for guidance in this very important matter, before I either kill myself, or freely allow another party to do it for me, since if I live forever in the state in which I have died, then that decision will have serious consequences for me when I approach the Seat of Judgment which is nothing other than my Conscience in the light of God Himself.
Now, we live in a society which is vastly more atheistic and secular in belief than were previous generations and, as a Catholic, all I can say is that, given what the Church teaches about both suicide and murder as grave dangers to the immortal souls of those who commit them, the best that we can say of those Governments, parts of Governments, celebrities and children's books authors currently considering or promoting the idea of 'assisted suicide' as a potential answer to a host of modern day problems, economic problems, as well as social and societal ills, is that they have not thought them through very well. And, all I have discussed, so far, is the awful reality of death that we must all undergo, for 'after death, comes judgment'. From what I hear of the Church's mystics, even purgatory is a fate worse than physical pain and incurable terminal disease in this life.
We have not yet even considered the huge social ramifications involved in the 'assisted suicide' debate. That will have to be dealt with in the next post. Suffice to say, however, that the trends emerging in the United Kingdom, as well as other countries signalling an interest in assisted suicide, is that both the State and the Media consider that while our right to life is arbitrary and at the mercy of doctors, nurses, mothers and fathers, our 'right to die' could be deemed, in the future, absolutely guaranteed. It was guarateed already, of course, its just the timing that is so crucial.
Death, Dignity and Dystopia
And to recap once more, the attraction of 'assisted dying' or rather, 'assisted suicide', or even voluntary euthanasia, if we are to refuse modern Newspeak, is that we can obtain a measure of control over suffering and our fear of death by at least asserting control over our destiny then we feel more comfortable about death because we can convince ourselves we can master it. We have considered some of the moral and spiritual consequences of the propaganda that surrounds the issue of voluntary euthanasia.
But what does a society that permits 'assisted dying' look like? Well, surely it would look like a society that bears no resemblence to its forgotten Christian past, in days in which the sanctity of human life was defended by both Church and State, for, in those days before the emergence of the 'brave new world', it was deemed that the spiritual or eternal consequences of suicide were to be avoided and that courage, compassion, love, patience in suffering and virtue were to be promoted. Human dignity was to be defended not because it was arbitrary or in the eye of the beholder, but because human dignity was something objective - not something that illness, disease, or suffering could erase from a person. And, for those who believed in the Church and in God, despite trial and physical pain, people believed, rightly that their reward would be in their souls.
Of course, an age that abandons traditional Christian beliefs too necessarily abandons the hope that came with them and, in fact, it is only because we live in a more atheistic age that British society finds itself assailed by a concerted media-driven propaganda campaign to soften its attitudes on 'assisted suicide', since, were it a Christian society, such a message would be rejected forcibly by the public and, presumably, the majority of the politicians who emerged from that society.
But we do not live in that age anymore and we cannot, apparently, 'go back' and if euthanisia is to be born in the United Kingdom, it could well be that it happens because abortion was born first. For what links abortion and euthanasia is the choice of death over life. In abortion, a doctor and a patient choose death for an unborn patient. In euthanasia, were it come to pass, a doctor and a patient choose death for the patient. Both choices are not choices of hope and life, but choices of despair and death and it is despair that dominates societies which have and continue to embrace sin and reject God. It is noteworthy, too, that the growing popularity of the movement for assisted suicide comes after the United Kingdom has accepted and grown accustomed to abortion and other social evils such as divorce and the breakdown of the institution of the family.
Without recourse even to the teaching of the Church, we can say that natural law, which is open to those who follow their conscience in the light of reason, would dictate that divorce, abortion and family breakdown are bad for individuals and all of society, promoting division over unity, death over life, despair over hope. When a society has embraced such social evils as the above, then it is, one could say, natural that despair would reign in that society since the natural bonds that bind together families, communities and individuals break down to such an extent, that unhappiness is the result. Many women, for example, regret their abortions and a number suffer anxiety, guilt, alcoholism and unhappiness as a result - some even taking their own lives eventually.
The natural happiness of a good conscience which arises out of what Greek philosophers would describe as the virtuous life decreases so much in a society that death itself appears better than life because life has become miserable, ravaged by pain, guilt, depression, fear and despair. The United Kingdom is now in its anti-depressant age and many citizens are dependent upon pharmaceutical drugs (as well as illegal drugs) just to 'make it through the night'.
It is only in this kind of society, where not only is God and the Law of God erased from public life, but the natural law is discarded, that a drive for voluntary euthanasia or assisted suicide can flourish for once the party is over and the hangover kicks in and the superficial pleasures of the World which brought relief and escape are over, what other form of escape from our condition do we have, but death itself? British society is being brought to its knees, but the population no longer look to God or the Church for the answer, since the answer is unpalatable, salutary and displeasing. And so, sorrowfully, the population begins to look to the State or to others with influence, such as the world of celebrity and the media, for answers.
Dignity in Dying, which was once called the Voluntary Euthanasia Society, would, fifty years ago, have been considered as a bunch of cranks whose agenda was transparently evil because they proposed suicide as the answer to social ills. The organisation had to change its name because, like the Eugenics Society that became the Galton Institute, the Voluntary Euthansia Society became tainted by the Nazi tyranny which embraced both eugenics and volutary euthansia until they stopped asking the 'unfit' it they'd actually like to be killed and just did it anyway. In the 21st century, however, the agenda of Dignity in Dying, which is essentially the same agenda as it was in 1935, is hovering over the United Kingdom and receiving an unhealthy measure of interest. A sufferer of 'locked in syndrome' called Tony Niklinson maintains that his life is "dull, miserable, demeaning, undignified and intolerable", according to The Times (Tuesday 13 March, 2012) and so is campaigning for the right to ask a doctor to kill him without the doctor facing prosecution. Could the phrase 'hard cases create bad law' be any more apt for this discussion? Since, if the State allows 'mercy killing' (another Newspeak phrase among the vast range of Newspeak phrases) in this case, then to whom can the State turn down an application to be voluntarily killed by a third party?
The answer is, of course, that if the level of human suffering and degradation is subjective according to the sufferer, then a loophole in the law allowing the killing of Tony Nicklinson opens up the avenue for many people with various conditions to come forward to be killed in the future since they deem their lives not worthy of being called 'life'. Nicklinson claims he 'does not want to dribble into old age'. Well, who of us would? And faced with 'end of life issues' such as dementia, incontinence, dribbling, chronic pain and incapacity and being dependent on the care of others, Nicklinson's reasons for desiring assisted suicide could be attributable to any of us. Many in old age or who suffer terminal illness face this very reality. The point is that when the State and the medical associations (and the media) and thus all of society endorse Tony's view that his life is 'unfit' to be called life, by killing him, then we have implicitly made the statement that it is not just Tony's view, but it is the view of the State and society. If somebody's reason for being killed by a doctor was summed up in the belief that they do not want to 'be a burden' then as soon as we permit their killing, we have made the declaration that, far from being a loveable person requiring our compassionate care, that the person was indeed 'a burden' on society or was, in some sense, 'unfit to live'.
As soon as we allow for the idea that there are some people who are 'unfit to live', who are 'a burden on others' or who no longer have dignity, but that their only source of dignity is death itself, then we create the framework for a society that believes that death is the answer to the host of mental and physical illnesses present in society at large. Once a State and society has endorsed this idea for a given length of time, it would not be in the slightest bit surprising if that State and that society promoted voluntary euthanasia as an answer to all of those problems. Before very long, you create a society in which anyone can be killed voluntarily on their own assessment of their situation and it does not take a great leap of the imagination to suggest that the movement from individual, subjective assessment of one's own need for death as the escape from illness, disease, or dependence on the State and others for care becomes so commonly assessed as reqnhsuiring death as a 'solution' that the State itself deems death to be the 'solution' to the problem itself and considers itself more able to make the decision about your life, or your death, than you.
But ,'Surely', I hear you cry, 'In the United Kingdom, this could never happen, because not only is assisted suicide still illegal, bar for a couple of High Court cases, but also the framework of law and apparatus to be prepared for the legal, judicially decided killing of those incapable of 'seeing their own need' for the State's intervention in this matter is not yet in place? We're not anywhere near Nazi Germany!' Well, Germany isn't that far away from us and the apparatus is in place. So is the law. The law is called the Mental Incapacity Act and the apparatus is called The Court of Protection, which operates, not terribly surprisingly, in secret. Now, do I have your attention? The apparatus for a 'final' if more subtle 'solution' for the 'unproductive' and 'unfit' in the United Kingdom is in place, but it relies first upon the British population accepting and swallowing the propaganda first and, just as the BBC was used to spread the sexual revolution and the wrecked families and little unborn corpses it left in its wake, the over-turning of the idea that suicide isn't really a 'good thing' is, once again being promoted by the televisual arm of the State.
In all honesty, it is plausible that the Galton Institute which was known as British Eugenics Society, which incidentally has deep links with the relevant Royal Societies (Happy Diamond Jubilee, Your Majesty!) is also on good terms with Dignity in Dying, which was known as the Voluntary Euthanasia Society. What with the abortion clinics started by various members of the British Eugenics Society being well and truly models of commercial and eugenic success in the United Kingdom, one almost wonders if the Dignity in Dying members believe that abortion clinics could actually double up as euthansia clinics. Why build new clinics to kill NHS patients when clinics that kill NHS patients already exist?
Bigger bins would be needed, naturally, though I suppose incineration would be the most environmentally safe way to cull the masses. After all, we don't want more landfill do we? That's 'dignity in dying' and its eugenics too, since the Galton Institute are interested in eliminating the diseased, the imperfect, the 'inferior', the disabled, the weak and 'unfit' before birth using the pretext of 'genetics' via the use of pre-natal scans and, in IVF, pre-implantation diagnosis. After birth, should the imperfect have the audacity to escape the womb, the Dignity in Dying lobby are there to promote the 'end of life' plan once the 'unfit' are born into a society that finds their existence intolerable. That's how you create a eugenic utopia, an apparently 'better world', otherwise known by people who are not pathological fanatics of serial killing, as a State-led dystopia. But there is a better World and in that better World, the 'world without end' dwells the souls of those who fought for our World to reflect the joy, the love and the abundant kindness and mercy of Heaven. Do not let the morbid, deathly, misanthoropic, inhuman State into which we are born sing you to sleep. Defend the sanctity of your life, defend the sanctity of all human life, at all possible cost...
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