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Is it Time to….
Part One of Three By Dave Andrusko Editor's note. Hello and thanks for taking time to read TN&V and National Right to Life News Today. Part Two walks us through how to discuss the abortion issue in an effective manner. Part Three is a poignant reflection of a post-abortive woman. Over at National Right to Life News Today (www.nationalrighttolifenews.org), we run a ringing reaffirmation that lives with disabilities ARE very much worth living. NRLC's library of pro-life resources was the first thing I thought of when I read about TIME magazine's new "TIMEFRAMES." We also ask if there will be any difference in "Obama 2.0" and conclude not on our issues. Please send your comments on Today's News & Views and National Right to Life News Today to daveandrusko@gmail.com. If you like, join those who are following me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/daveha.
If that is your initial response, I hope you will think twice about the poll found at www.ocregister.com/articles/death-280509-palmateer-wife.html. Whether it ought to or not (and it ought not), this sort of anecdotal evidence is used by proponents of assisted suicide to "prove" that the public wants the law changed. For Whiting, of course, this is a rhetorical question. He is annoyed that California has not followed the enlightened lead of nearby Oregon and Washington and passed measures to legalize assisted suicide--aka "death with dignity." "In 1992 and in 2006 respectively, California voters and then the Legislature killed death with dignity laws," he huffs. Note, by the way, that both the people and the people's representatives have rejected assisted suicide. I understand how easy it is for proponents to tug on heartstrings--to skip the brain and go directly to the heart. The wedge advocates such as Whiting so often use is the elderly man or woman who kills their aging spouse. The first instinct of many people is sympathy. The "answer" people like Whiting offer is to legalize assisted suicide While every case is different, as you read the details of these cases (and I've read many), it's clear what is often at work. The patient has not received proper pain-management. In this day and age, that ought to be unheard of. But from personal knowledge, I know it isn't always the case. Even more often the spouse has not received the kind of care-taking support he or (more often) she needs. But even when they do, without strong backing from a caring staff and family, either or both spouses can easily slip into depression. And we can never forget that many advocates (but not Whiting, at least not in this column) are increasingly straight-forward about their larger ambitions: if you don't feel your life is "worth living," then you ought to be able to seek and receive "assistance in dying." None of this stuff about a "way out" for loving couples who've been married for a half-century, or being locked into intractable pain, or any of the usual rationales. If your life is not meaningful in your own eyes, reason enough to be "assisted" to die. As I say, please take a minute and consider voting in the poll. It is found at http://www.ocregister.com/articles/death-280509-palmateer-wife.html |
I
understand that many pro-lifers resent taking part in online
polls to "vote" on a life-and-death question. So when Orange
County Register columnist David Whiting asks, "Is it time to
revisit 'death with dignity'?," our first response might be "I
won't dignify that with an answer."