There is a terrible proposal in Springfield being shopped around behind closed doors – a  bill to legalize assisted suicide in Illinois. Certain members of the Illinois General Assembly are trying to rush a measure through so that the Governor can sign it into law, but is this a good idea? What does the Bible say about such things?

There are a number of examples of suicide that are recorded in the Bible and they are all tragic and terrible. King Saul threw himself on his own sword in 1 Samuel 31 after the LORD declared that the Kingdom would be taken from him and given to David. King Zimri is another example. 1 Kings 16:18-19 tells us,

“When Zimri saw that the city was taken, he went into the citadel of the king’s house and burned the king’s house over him with fire, and died, because of his sins which he sinned, doing evil in the sight of the Lord, walking in the way of Jeroboam, and in his sin which he did, making Israel sin.”

And who can forget the most famous account of suicide in the Bible, when Judas after his betrayal of Christ went and hanged himself (Matthew 27:5).

In these, and other accounts, the Bible makes it very clear that suicide is sin. Life is precious, and life has sanctity because God is the Author of it. Our own lives are not ours to take whenever we wish. They belong to God, and God determines when life begins and ends, not us. Listen to the words of Deuteronomy 32:39,

“See now that I, I am He, And there is no god besides Me; It is I who put to death and give life. I have wounded and it is I who heal, And there is no one who can deliver from My Hand.”

And again in 1 Samuel 2:6,

“The LORD kills and makes alive; He brings down to Sheol and raises up.”

Do you see that? GOD ALONE has authority over life and death. GOD ALONE is able to take life and give life. He is the Author of Life!

Scripture does not give us license to take our own lives. Suicide is self-murder, and murder is always wrong. Those who say that people should have the right to go to a physician to assist them in killing themselves are engaging in foolish talk. It is the sort of talk that Job’s wife took part in after Job lost his wealth, his children, and his health.

^“Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die!” But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.” (Job 2:9-10).

Job’s attitude was righteous, but his wife’s was foolish and evil.

And this foolishness will only increase if legislation allowing physician assisted suicide passes in our state. It will be presented as a “mercy” for terminally ill people, but inevitably it will snowball into “compassionate suicide” for people with all sorts of various maladies like chronic arthritis and depression as it has in European nations, and eventually it may even culminate in forced euthanasia. What a disaster such legislation would be for Illinois.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to your local state senator and state representative today and tell them you are against any bill that allows assisted suicide in our state!

And friend, for anyone who is considering suicide, I want to share with you a story from the Bible about a man who was just like you, but he found hope in Christ. If there was hope for this man, there is hope for you too. No matter what sort of trial is happening in your life, there is always hope in Jesus.

^“But about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God, and the prisoners were listening to them; and suddenly there came a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison house were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened. When the jailer awoke and saw the prison doors opened, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. 

But Paul cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here!” And he called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas, and after he brought them out, he said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” They said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” And they spoke the word of the Lord to him together with all who were in his house. And he took them that very hour of the night and washed their wounds, and immediately he was baptized, he and all his household. And he brought them into his house and set food before them, and rejoiced greatly, having believed in God with his whole household.” (Acts 16:25-34).

In an excerpt from a panel discussion, Ryan T. Anderson, PhD., author and the William E. Simon Senior Research Fellow in American Principles & Public Policy at The Heritage Foundation, discusses four arguments against physician-assisted suicide. A strong pro-life stance must encompass not only the value of life in the womb, but also the value of life at every point from birth to God-appointed death.

Watch and listen to this short video as Anderson details how physician-assisted suicide endangers the weak, corrupts the practice of medicine, compromises the family, and violates human dignity and equality:

Read more:

Four Problems with Physician-Assisted Suicide

When I was asked by my late daughter Marie’s best friend to join her on a family and friends fundraising walk for suicide prevention last Sunday, I hesitated.

I was in the process of reading yet another disturbing article about assisted suicide, this time a Journal of Clinical Psychiatry article titled “Working with Decisionally Capable Patients Who Are Determined to End Their Own Lives”  and I found it outrageous that the suicide prevention groups I know exclude potential physician-assisted suicide victims.

As a nurse, I have personally and professionally cared for many suicidal people over decades including some who were terminally ill. To my knowledge, none of these people went on to die by suicide except one-my own daughter.

Almost nine years ago, my 30 year old daughter Marie died by suicide using an assisted suicide technique she found after searching suicide and assisted suicide websites and reading assisted suicide supporter Derek Humphry’s book “Final Exit”.

Marie was a wonderful woman who achieved a degree in engineering despite struggling off and on with substance abuse and thoughts of suicide for 16 years. She was in an outpatient behavioral health program at the time of her suicide. Her suicide was my worst fear and it devastated all of us in the family as well as her friends. Two people close to Marie also became suicidal after her death but were fortunately saved.

For years before and after Marie’s death, I have written and spoken to groups around the country about the legal and ethical problems with assisted suicide as well as suicide contagion  and media reporting guidelines for suicide.

So it was with mixed feelings that I participated in the suicide prevention walk but now I am glad I did.

“WORKING WITH DECISIONALLY CAPABLE PATIENTS WHO ARE DETERMINED TO END THEIR OWN LIVES”

I finally finished reading this article after the walk and found that while the authors of this Journal of Clinical Psychiatry article insist that they are only discussing “decisionally capable” people with “advanced medical illness”, they write:

“The 24% increase in US suicide rates from 1999 to 2014 has led to greater efforts to identify, prevent, and intervene in situations associated with suicidality. While the desire to kill oneself is not synonymous with a mental illness, 80%–90% of completed suicides are associated with a mental disorder, most commonly depression. Understandably, psychiatrists and other clinicians face strong moral, cultural, and professional pressures to do everything possible to avert suicide. Hidden within these statistics are unknown numbers of individuals determined to end their lives, often in the context of a life-limiting physical illness, who have no mental disorder or who, despite having a mental disorder, were nevertheless seemingly rational and decisionally capable and in whom the mental disorder did not seem to influence the desire to hasten death.”

Tragically, the authors also state:

“In reviewing the either sparse or dated literature in this field, surveys from the United States and Canada support that most psychiatrists believe that PAD (physician aid in dying, a euphemism for assisted suicide) should be legal and is ethical in some cases and that they might want the option for themselves.”

And

“Although we see ‘assisted death’ as an option of last resort, we instead ask whether on certain occasions psychiatrists might appropriately not seek to prevent selected decisionally capable individuals from ending their own lives.” (All emphasis added)

This flies in the face of long-standing professional suicide prevention and treatment principles.

Notably, the article ends with an addendum, the 2017 Statement of the American Association of Suicidology (AAS): “Suicide is not the same as ‘Physician Aid in Dying’”

That concludes:

“In general, suicide and physician aid in dying are conceptually, medically, and legally different phenomena, with an undetermined amount of overlap between these two categories” but “Such deaths should not be considered to be cases of suicide and are therefore a matter outside the central focus of the AAS.” (Emphasis added)

WHY I AM GLAD I WENT ON THE SUICIDE PREVENTION WALK

The Sunday walk was sponsored by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP), a group that I discovered states it is trying to “Develop an updated AFSP policy position on assisted death (other common terms include physician assisted suicide or Death with Dignity Laws)”

The next day, I was able to contact a policy person at their Washington, D.C. office and, unlike other suicide prevention group representatives I have contacted in the past, I found this woman surprisingly interested and receptive to the idea that we should not discriminate against certain people when it comes to suicide prevention and treatment. She even asked for my contact information.

Of course, the AFSP may decide to exclude potential assisted suicide victims like other organizations have done but at least I tried and that’s the best tribute I can give to my daughter now.

This article was originally published at NancyValko.com

An April 13, 2018 USA Today op-ed titled “Make an End-of-life plan or Lose your Money and Choices in your Dying Days” by Hattie Bryant begins with the statement “End-of-life care can bankrupt your family and rob you of choices. End the denial about dying. Make a plan in case you end up seriously ill and frail.” (Emphasis added)

Ms. Bryant is very upfront about using the economic argument about aging and the enormous toll it can take financially and personally on the family as well as medical costs. She states that “in 2011, Medicare spent $554 billion and 28%, or about $170 billion, on patients’ last six months of life. After $170 billion is spent, those patients are still dead.”

Her solution is a new kind of economic advance directive she developed (and is selling as a book titled “I’ll Have It My Way: Taking Control of End-of-Life Decisions“ ) “that deals with how you want your funds spent when you are seriously ill or frail.” (All emphasis added)

SHOULD WE HAVE A “DUTY TO DIE”?

Back in 1984, Governor Richard Lamm of Colorado found himself in the middle of a firestorm of outrage when, as the New York Times reported, “Governor Lamm Asserts Elderly, If Very Ill, Have a ‘Duty to Die”.

Here is an excerpt from the article:

“Elderly people who are terminally ill have a ”duty to die and get out of the way” instead of trying to prolong their lives by artificial means, Gov. Richard D. Lamm of Colorado said Tuesday.

People who die without having life artificially extended are similar to ”leaves falling off a tree and forming humus for the other plants to grow up,” the Governor told a meeting of the Colorado Health Lawyers Association at St. Joseph’s Hospital.

”You’ve got a duty to die and get out of the way,” said the 48-year-old Governor. ”Let the other society, our kids, build a reasonable life.”

This philosophy was echoed in 2014 by one of the architects of Obamacare, Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel, when he wrote “Why I Hope to Die at 75-An argument that society and families—and you—will be better off if nature takes its course swiftly and promptly” for The Atlantic Magazine.

At age 57 at the time, Dr. Emanuel states that while death is a loss, there “is a simple truth that many of us seem to resist: living too long is also a loss” that “renders many of us, if not disabled, then faltering and declining, a state that may not be worse than death but is nonetheless deprived. It robs us of our creativity and ability to contribute to work, society, the world. It transforms how people experience us, relate to us, and, most important, remember us. We are no longer remembered as vibrant and engaged but as feeble, ineffectual, even pathetic.” (Emphasis added)

He states that he will stop trying to prolong his own life by age 75.

CONCLUSION

Helping to care for many terminally ill or seriously disabled relatives, friends and patients of all ages for many decades both professionally and personally, I have a different perspective.

We are all born dependent on others for care and many of us need at least some help from others at the end of our lives. This can be hard at times-as even parents of newborns will attest-but the rewards are great both for the helper and the person being helped.

I remember when my mother with Alzheimer’s and terminal thyroid cancer was dying in 1988. It wasn’t the most convenient time for us, to say the least. I was a suddenly single parent with three young children and financially struggling.  My mother no longer recognized me but, as I told a friend, the most important issue was that I recognized her.  As a family, we did what was medically reasonable for my mother to help her without either prolonging or hastening her dying.

Taking care of my mother was a wonderful, if occasionally difficult, experience and I am grateful that we were able to keep her at home almost to the very end.

The final result was that my mother was kept  safe, comfortable and loved. Her funeral was truly a celebration of her life and my children learned an important lesson about the circle of life and taking care of each other. We still talk fondly about their time helping with grandma, even after 30 years.

When I made out my own advance directive, I made sure that it was as protective as possible against a hastened death. I don’t fear death. I do fear the bioethicists  and others who use economics and fear to push especially older people into prematurely signing away their rights to even basic care and what this does to our society.

This article was originally published at NancyValko.com

Life is so precious, and the right to life recognized as a “natural” or God-given right, so much so that it was codified in our Declaration of Independence.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Note that the “right to life” is given preeminence: without life no other right is necessary. And “unalienable” further emphasizes the untouchable nature of that right: mankind was gifted life by its Creator — the Lord God Almighty — and no man or government can take that right away except in the case of a proven capital crime.

Indeed, within each man and woman is the longing to live as well and as long as possible on this earth, in spite of hardship or physical pain. Even terminal patients, given adequate pain-relieving drugs, don’t wish to hasten death, but to live every moment to the fullest.

Joni Eareckson Tada, paralyzed and a quadriplegic since a diving accident in 1967, speaks to the issue of disability versus death following the release of the awful movie, Me Before You:

In light of the fact that California’s new physician-assisted suicide law goes into effect tomorrow (Thursday, June 9), following closely on the heels of the newly-released film, Me Before You, I wanted to sound an alarm about this egregious legislation and the glamorization of it.

In the movie, the quadriplegic says to his loved one, “I don’t want you to miss all the things someone else can give you.” Instead, he took away everything she wanted from him – his love and the essence of who he was – when he decided to end his life. Not only does this movie glamorize assisted suicide; it conveys the distinct impression that marriage to someone with quadriplegia is too hard, too demanding and sorely lacks the joys of typical marriage.

Regardless of whether or not in the context of a marriage, the taking of one’s own life or enabling a loved one with a disability to do so is never the answer. All life is created in the image of God and worth our greatest efforts to preserve and protect, and He alone is the one who should order the length of our days.

Some will assert that pain is an adequate reason for euthanasia, and yet, pain specialists state that properly administered drugs can provide at least good relief in 97% of all cases.

The final reason people may consider suicide is depression. And yet, depression can be alleviated via properly prescribed medicines and/or sound counseling. Thus suicide is a permanent “solution” to a temporary situation or mindset.

Scripture admonishes us to choose life:

I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live. (Deuteronomy 30:19)

So, with all the advances in pain meds and availability of rock solid counseling, why is the teen suicide rate soaring?

In a USA Today article, “Teen suicide is soaring. Do spotty mental health and addiction treatment share blame?” authors Jayne O’Donnell and Anne Saker write:

The suicide rate for white children and teens between 10 and 17 was up 70% between 2006 and 2016, the latest data analysis available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Although black children and teens kill themselves less often than white youth do, the rate of increase was higher — 77%.

A study of pediatric hospitals released last May found admissions of patients ages 5 to 17 for suicidal thoughts and actions more than doubled from 2008 to 2015. The group at highest risk for suicide are white males between 14 and 21.

Experts and teens cite myriad reasons, including spotty mental health screening, poor access to mental health services and resistance among young men and people of color to admit they have a problem and seek care.

In other words, the experts have no idea.

And yet, for decades the “experts” have been telling students in government schools that they are the by-product of mere chance.

Author Frank Peretti sums up the abysmally depressing instruction:

Kids, welcome to Biology 101. We’re going to learn lots of fun things in this class. We’re going to learn how…we’re going to cut up frogs and we’re going to pick flowers. We’re going to learn about pistils and stamens and all kinds of fun things.

But the first thing you need to know, boys and girls, above all else is that YOU are an ACCIDENT!

You have absolutely no reason for being here! There is no meaning, no purpose to your life!

You are nothing but a meaningless conglomeration of molecules that came together purely by chance billions and billions of years ago.

All the dust and the gas in the galaxy floated around for who knows how long and they bumped into each other and said, “I know! Let’s be organic! So they became organic. And they became little gooey, slimy things, you know, swimming around in the primordial soup.

And they finally grew little feet and they crawled up on the land and they grew fur and feathers and became higher forms of life. And they finally became a monkey and the monkey developed into an ape, and then the ape decided to shave. So he shaved and became what you are today.

From goo to you by way of the zoo!

Add to that thoroughly gloomy “naturalist” teaching the Pew chronicled “Nones on the Rise” and you have a recipe for mental and spiritual utter despondency.

Pew Research reported:

The number of Americans who do not identify with any religion continues to grow at a rapid pace. One-fifth of the U.S. public – and a third of adults under 30 – are religiously unaffiliated today, the highest percentages ever in Pew Research Center polling.

In the last five years alone, the unaffiliated have increased from just over 15% to just under 20% of all U.S. adults. Their ranks now include more than 13 million self-described atheists and agnostics (nearly 6% of the U.S. public), as well as nearly 33 million people who say they have no particular religious affiliation (14%).

. . .

The growth in the number of religiously unaffiliated Americans – sometimes called the rise of the “nones” – is largely driven by generational replacement, the gradual supplanting of older generations by newer ones.

You may have heard Mainstream Media touting that “religion is dying.” But that’s not the story at all. Rather, affiliation in mainline Protestant and Catholic denominations is dying.

So we have several generations of youth taught from the earliest grades that they are nothing more than the result of a cosmic accident in school and receiving zero countermanding instruction in the home or in church.

That is a recipe for depression.

Add to that the disdain for life itself demonstrated by Planned Parenthood and every pro-abort in America, the implication being you’re an accident of nature, and if you in any way inconvenience your parents (who are also, by the way, just accidents of nature), then they will happily kill you before you’re born in the most painful way imaginable. And they may even allow Planned Parenthood to sell your poor little, mangled body parts for research to save other lives.

That, by the way, is a total enigma: why bother to do research to save lives of people who are an accident of nature and somehow, by random chance, managed to escape the abortionist’s butchery and were actually born!

The real question should not be “Why the high teen suicide rate?” but rather, “Why aren’t more teens taking their lives given an education and society that tells them they are an accident, that life means nothing, and that there is no hope after this life on earth!”

King David wrote:

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. (Psalm 139:14)

Which brings us back full circle to our Declaration of Independence, written by the Founders who believed and were informed by the Bible. Those Founders knew what King David knew — that the Creator of the universe designed and breathed life into each person, that life is worth living because of the hope we have in God.

Again we look to the uplifting words of David:

Why, my soul, are you downcast?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God. (Psalm 42:11)

That is the hope we must share with the youth, and other generations of America. That is the remedy for the epidemic of suicide and depression.

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It has been twenty years since Oregon’s physician-assisted suicide law took effect after a public referendum. Since then, four other states have legalized physician-assisted suicide.

Polls seem to show strong public support for physician-assisted suicide. They ask questions like this one from a 2017 Gallup poll: “When a person has a disease that cannot be cured and is living in severe pain, do you think doctors should or should not be allowed by law to assist the patient to commit suicide if the patient requests it?”

Unfortunately, most people have only a vague idea about what such laws actually say and do. Here are six things you must know before you decide whether to support or oppose physician-assisted suicide.

1. Pain or any other suffering is not a requirement for a person seeking assisted suicide; “a disease that cannot be cured” can include manageable conditions like diabetes as well as terminal illnesses like cancer.

None of the US laws are restricted to patients experiencing pain, which can be addressed in ways that do not deliberately kill the patient. In 2016, for example, almost half of patients using assisted suicide in Oregon cited their reason for seeking death as “Burden on family, friends/caregivers” while just 35 percent cited “Inadequate pain control or concern about it.”

2. Medical professionals participating in physician-assisted suicide are immune from accountability and standards of due care.

“No person shall be subject to civil or criminal liability or professional disciplinary action for participating in good faith compliance with” Oregon’s law. Thus any licensed doctor (or other healthcare provider), with or without experience and regardless of his or her medical specialty, can write a lethal overdose prescription for a patient as long as he or she claims to be in “good faith compliance.” As a legal standard, this test is effectively meaningless, because it relies only on the physician’s word.

The physician is not required to be—and often is not—the patient’s primary care doctor. Many physicians do not want to be involved in this process, according to “Compassion & Choices,” an organization that promotes the legalization of physician-assisted suicide throughout the United States. When one doctor (or many) conclude that it would be irresponsible to give a lethal overdose to a patient, such organizations encourage patients to find a doctor with lower standards.

No other medical intervention has such immunity protection from lawsuits or criminal investigation. In addition, no other medical intervention is so devoid of standards for the clinical expertise or education required of the physician involved.

3. Physician-assisted suicide does not involve the stringent documentation and oversight required for other medical interventions.

In all jurisdictions where physician-assisted suicide is allowed, to prescribe a lethal overdose the doctor need only fill out the required state forms that include a consultation with a second physician who agrees. Neither doctor is required to have a professional relationship with the patient before the physician-assisted suicide request.

Documentation of physician-assisted suicides relies on doctors’ self-reporting. There is no requirement that the actual taking of the lethal overdose be witnessed by a medical professional or anyone else. This means that there is no safeguard against medical complications, coercion by family members, or other problems.

The Oregon law also specifies that, “Except as otherwise required by law, the information collected shall not be a public record and may not be made available for inspection by the public.” Only “an annual statistical report of information” is made public, after which the original forms are destroyed.

Unfortunately, the immunity protections and secrecy surrounding even the minimal self-reporting in state-level assisted-suicide laws eliminate the possibility of future potential lawsuits or prosecutions for abuse. They keep alive the myth that there are strong safeguards in the law that eliminate problems like coercion or elder abuse.

4. The cause of death must be falsified.

States with physician-assisted suicide laws require that the cause of death is reported as death from an underlying condition rather than the lethal overdose, supposedly to ensure the patient’s privacy. But this clearly violates the standards set for coroners and medical examiners by the Centers for Disease Control. Those standards require accuracy in determination of death because “The death certificate is the source for State and national mortality and is used to determine which medical conditions receive research and development funding, to set public health goals, and to measure health status at local, State, national, and international levels.”

Falsified death certificates also quietly function to smooth over any problems with life insurance policies that have suicide clauses denying death benefits if the insured commits suicide within two years of taking out a policy. And since doctors are only required to “recommend that the patient notify next of kin” about the plan for assisted suicide, the rest of the patient’s family may never know the real cause of death. This means that they are also deprived of the chance to reassure their loved ones of their support and willingness to help take care of them until their natural death.

5. Assisted suicide laws promote discrimination against suicidal people.

The usual standards for caring for a suicidal person include intensive management to prevent suicide attempts. These are changed in physician-assisted suicide: “If, in the opinion of the attending physician or the consulting physician, a patient may be suffering from a psychiatric or psychological disorder or depression causing impaired judgment, either physician shall refer the patient for counseling.” Only the evaluation of a patient’s competence, not the diagnosable mental disorders that afflict more than 90 percent of people who die by suicide, is required. It is shocking that only 3.8 percent of those seeking physician-assisted suicide in Oregon were referred for psychiatric evaluation in 2016. Patients with dementia and with clinical depression that had existed for years before they contracted a physical illness have died under the Oregon law.

6. Suicide is contagious.

A 2015 article in the Southern Medical Journal titled “How Does Legalization of Physician-Assisted Suicide Affect Rates of Suicide?” studied Oregon’s and Washington’s rates of non-assisted suicide after assisted suicide laws were passed. Despite claims that assisted suicide laws would reduce other suicides or only substitute for them, the authors reached the disturbing conclusion that “Rather, the introduction of PAS (physician assisted suicide) seemingly induces more self-inflicted deaths than it inhibits.”

This does not surprise me. In 2009 my thirty-year-old, physically healthy daughter Marie died by suicide. She killed herself using a technique she learned after visiting assisted suicide/suicide websites and reading Final Exit (1991) by Derek Humphry, founder of the Hemlock Society (an organization that merged with another group to form Compassion & Choices). The medical examiner called her suicide “textbook Final Exit.”

Adding to our family’s pain, at least two people close to Marie became suicidal not long after her suicide. Luckily, they were saved, but suicide contagion, better known as “copycat suicide,” is a well-documented phenomenon. Often media coverage or publicity around one death can encourage other vulnerable people to commit suicide.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suicide rates have been increasing since 2000 after decades of decline. Suicide is now the tenth leading cause of death in the United States, with more than 44,000 people dying by suicide every year. Suicide costs society over $56 billion a year in combined medical- and work-loss costs, not to mention the enormous toll suicide takes on family and friends. Oregon’s suicide rate is more than 40 percent higher than the national average.

Is the real healthcare crisis not enough physician-assisted suicide laws? Or is it the staggering and increasing number of people losing their battles with mental illness and committing suicide?

No matter what Compassion & Choices says, physician-assisted suicide is not a civil right or just one of an assortment of morally neutral end-of-life options. It’s time to stand up and fight to keep the medical profession from abandoning its most fundamental ethical principles.

This article was originally posted at The Public Discourse

Written by Rod Dreher

“In the absence of faith, we govern by tenderness.  And tenderness leads to the gas chamber,” said Flannery O’Connor. Her point was that sentimentality cannot restrain the darker forces in human nature. Which brings us to the Catholic bishops of eastern Canada.

They recently published a pastoral document indicating how, in their opinion, Catholics who commit suicide voluntarily, through doctor-assisted euthanasia (which is now legal there), should be treated by the Church. The full document is downloadable here. It is a masterpiece of Francis-speak. The document can be summed up like this: “Yes, euthanasia is strictly forbidden by the Catholic Church, but we know that some people are going to choose it anyway, so we intend to offer them all the sacraments to help them along the way, because who are we to judge?”

Here are some passages from the document. This is the opening paragraph:

In our Catholic tradition we often refer to the Church as our Mother. We perceive her as a mother who lovingly accompanies us throughout life, and who especially wishes to support and guide us when we are faced with difficult situations and decisions. It is from this perspective that we, the Bishops of the Atlantic Episcopal Assembly, wish to share with you this pastoral reflection on medical assistance in dying.

Come sit on Mama’s lap and let her tell you how she’s going to help you kill yourself. More:

Medical assistance in dying is a highly complex and intensely emotional issue which profoundly affects all of us. It makes us aware that some people have become convinced that, at a certain point, there is no longer any “value” in their lives, because their suffering has become unbearable or they cannot function as they once did or they feel a burden to their family and society. People with such a conviction or in such circumstances deserve our compassionate response and respect, for it is our belief that a person’s value arises from the inherent dignity we have as human beings and not from how well we function.

True enough — but watch those weasel words “highly complex and intensely emotional”. They are not meant to clarify but to obscure. More:

The example of Jesus shows us that pastoral care takes place in the midst of difficult situations, and that it involves listening closely to those who are suffering and accompanying them on the journey of their life situation.

Pope Francis also calls us to practice this “art of accompaniment”, removing our “sandals” before the sacred ground of the other (cf. Ex 3:5). The Holy Father writes that this accompaniment must be steady and reassuring, reflecting our closeness and our compassionate gaze which heals, liberates and encourages growth in the Christian life (Evangelii Gaudium – The Joy of the Gospel, no. 169). He says that to accompany requires prudence, understanding, patience and docility to the Spirit. He focuses on the need to practice the art of listening which requires the opening of one’s heart to a closeness which can lead to genuine spiritual encounter (Evangelii Gaudium – The Joy of the Gospel, no. 171). Pope Francis reminds us that the one who accompanies others must realize that each person’s situation before God and his/her life of grace are mysteries which no one can fully know from without. Consequently, we must not make judgements about people’s responsibility and culpability (Evangelii Gaudium – The Joy of the Gospel, no. 172).

See what they’re doing there? Invoking the compassion of Jesus and the counsel of humility and mercy of Pope Francis to lay the “who-am-I-to-judge” groundwork. But wait, doesn’t the Catholic Church teach that suicide is a grave moral wrong? The bishops knew you would say that:

Especially within the context of the Church’s teaching on suicide, this pastoral approach of accompaniment is extremely important in our contact with, and ministry to, those who are suffering intensely and who are considering asking for medical assistance in dying. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) teaches us that God is the sovereign Master of life. We are stewards, not owners, of the life God has entrusted to us. It is not ours to dispose of (CCC, no. 2280). The Catechism teaches that suicide contradicts the natural inclination of the human being to preserve and perpetuate one’s life (CCC, no. 2281). However, the Catechism also notes that “grave psychological disturbances, anguish, or grave fear of hardship, suffering, or torture can diminish the responsibility of the one committing suicide” (CCC, no. 2282). Such circumstances can sometimes lead persons to so grave a feeling of desperation and hopelessness that they can no longer see the value in continuing to live, this desperation and hopelessness diminishing their responsibility for their actions. Only attentive pastoral accompaniment can bring us to an understanding of the circumstances that could lead a person to consider medical assistance in dying.

This is diabolical. They’re saying, “Yes, we know, the church says it’s wrong, but in certain instances, it can be right, because circumstances may “diminish the responsibility of the one committing suicide.” What this teaching of the Church intends to do is to encourage hope for the soul of the suicide, that God may not hold him responsible for the great sin he has committed — a sin from which there can be no repentance. It does not justify euthanasia. But, having made a hole big enough to pilot a supertanker through, the Canadian bishops deliver the real goods:

The Sacrament of Penance is for the forgiveness of past sins, not the ones that have yet to be committed, and yet the Catechism reminds us that by ways known to God alone, God can provide the opportunity for salutary repentance (CCC, no. 2283). The Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick is for strengthening and accompanying someone in a vulnerable and suffering state. It presupposes one’s desire to follow Christ even in his passion, suffering and death; it is an expression of trust and dependence on God in difficult circumstances (CCC, no. 1520-3). The reception of Holy Communion as one approaches the end of this life can assist a person in growing in their union with Christ. This last Communion, called Viaticum, has a particular significance and importance as the seed of eternal life and the power of resurrection (CCC, no. 1524). As for the Church’s funeral rites, there are a number of possibilities available. However, in discerning the type of celebration most pastorally appropriate to the particular situation, there should always be dialogue with the persons concerned which is caring, sensitive and open. The decree of promulgation of the Order of Funerals states that: “By means of the funeral rites it has been the practice of the Church, as a tender mother, not simply to commend the dead to God but also to raise high the hope of its children and give witness to its own faith in the future resurrection of the baptized with Christ” (Prot. No. 720/69).

As people of faith, and ministers of God’s grace, we are called to entrust everyone, whatever their decisions may be, to the mercy of God. To one and all we wish to say that the pastoral care of souls cannot be reduced to norms for the reception of the sacraments or the celebration of funeral rites. Persons, and their families, who may be considering euthanasia or assisted suicide and who request the ministry of the Church need to be accompanied with dialogue and compassionate prayerful support. The fruit of such a pastoral encounter will shed light on complex pastoral situations and will indicate the most appropriate action to be taken including whether or not the celebration of sacraments is proper.

There’s more in the bishops’ statement, but that’s the heart of it. Notice how they have proposed something monstrously anti-Christian by slathering it with buttercream icing of tender verbiage. From the pen of these bishops, Bergoglian “who am I to judge?” tenderness leads to the euthanist’s needle. That’s not Church as Mother; that’s Church as Mommie Dearest.

Fortunately, there is at least one morally sane Catholic bishop in Canada: the mighty Fred Henry, the Bishop of Calgary, who addresses the assisted suicide issuewith straightforward, muscular prose, and lays out Catholic moral teaching with great clarity. Excerpt:

For Catholics, in order to receive the sacraments, one must have the proper disposition. The deepest meaning of receiving sacraments is that man entrusts himself to God’s loving mercy. Consciously and freely choosing euthanasia or assisted suicide implies that one is not entrusting oneself to God’s mercy, but is rather controlling the conclusion of one’s own life. Such a position is incompatible with the surrender to God’s loving mercy and it denies, so to speak, the strength that is inherent in the sacraments. Through the sacraments one participates in the suffering, the death and the Resurrection of Jesus and in the unconditional “yes” He spoke to His Father.

From this perspective, it is impossible to comply with a request for the sacraments when someone has planned to end his life or to have it ended actively. Such a person does not have the proper disposition.

Euthanasia and physician assisted suicide are not a “solution” to suffering, but an elimination of the suffering human being. It is therefore the confirmation of despair, of the overwhelming feeling that all suffering can only end when the human person himself ceases to be. If the pastoral caregiver were to support the request for euthanasia, he would be capitulating to despair, which is contrary to the hope alive within him which he wants to proclaim. If the Church’s minister were out of a false of compassion accede to such a request it would constitute an enormous situation of scandal and denial of the truth, “You shall not kill.”

This article was originally posted at TheAmericanConservative.com

Written by Nancy Valko

In 1994, Oregon became the first state to pass a physician-assisted suicide law. This came after the Oregon Medical Association changed its position from opposition to neutrality. Twenty one years later and after multiple failed attempts, the California state legislature approved the latest physician-assisted suicide law after the California Medical Association changed its opposition to neutrality.

The message sent-and received- was that if doctors themselves don’t strongly oppose physician-assisted suicide laws, why should the public?

Now the American Medical Association is set to reconsider changing its traditional opposition to assisted suicide to neutrality. This would be another, even more far-reaching disaster in terms of national impact.

For years, the euthanasia/assisted suicide activists of Compassion & Choices have successfully lobbied groups like the California Medical Association, the American Public Health Association, The American College of Legal Medicine, American Medical Student Association and American Medical Women’s Association and The American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine to support legalized physician-assisted suicide or at least take a “neutral” position.

As a former home health and hospice nurse, I am particularly outraged that the latest organization to crumble to Compassion & Choices is the Visiting Nurses Associations of America.

According to its website, Compassion & Choices says that the VNAA had Compassion & Choices as part of the their Public Policy Leadership Conference “where they discussed their federal agenda for 2016 and the important role that members of the VNAA play in end-of-life care.”

With millions of dollars from donors to advance its agenda, a supportive media that ignores dangerous facts, popular ethicists who change positions with the polls and a legal system that has helped to undermine protections for the medically vulnerable, it may seem that Compassion & Choices is getting closer to achieving its goal of forcing doctors and nurses to supply medically assisted death on demand.

For example, a 2014 survey of over 21,000 American and European doctors responding to an ethics survey conducted by Medscape (a password-protected website for medical professionals) showed that-for the first time-a majority of doctors polled supported assisted suicide.

However, here are a few ways any of us can help turn around this dire situation:

•  Educate yourself on the facts and consider joining others to publicly oppose medically assisted suicide/euthanasia in our courts, legislatures and media outlets.
• Demand that suicide prevention and treatment must be made available to all, not just the young and physically healthy.
• Ask your health care professionals about their position on assisted suicide/euthanasia and support only health care providers who will not assist suicide or refer for it.
• Discover and reach out to at risk individuals and their families who may be in your neighborhood or church. Loneliness and isolation can be debilitating.
• Consider volunteering at a local nursing home or facility. Some churches have even started programs to encourage church members to visit one hour, once a week with one patient.

None of us can afford to be neutral – or silent – when it comes to this life or death issue.

Nancy Valko has been a registered nurse since 1969 and currently I am a spokesperson for the National Association of Prolife Nurses (www.nursesforlife.org).  After working in critical care, hospice, home health, oncology, dialysis and other specialties for 45 years, she is currently working as a legal nurse consultant (www.valkogroupalnc.com) and volunteer.

This article was originally posted at her blog.