It’s been a few weeks since our nation was immersed in the emotional drama surrounding the end of Terri Shiavo’s life. We literally had to face death; not just hers, but the prospect of our own. The media eye has moved on now, and emotions have subsided somewhat, but our passion about the issues raised by Ms Shiavo’s final agony should remain aflame. We must not allow being euthanized to be euphemized.
Most of us were totally unaware that there was a dilemma facing us as a nation. Many people thought we were merely watching one person’s drama. Yet, it was a red flag identifying a cultural movement spreading within our nation’s consciousness and which has already infected the so-called ’civilized’ world. We’ve found in our own writing about freedom, writing about guns, writing about many of the issues that we face regarding our liberties and way of life that most people are just not involved, often shrug rather than confront these tough questions. Sure they have opinions, but they are usually not well thought out opinions, just whatever they absorbed from TV and water cooler talk.
That’s why we suggest re-reading the 1997 book, "Forced Exit" by Wesley J. Smith. In it he describes the very, very slippery slope we’ve been moving toward by legalizing ’assisted suicide’ and permitting ’euthanasia’, literally, the ’good death’. He makes us consider the people who had actually directed that ’extraordinary intervention’ be terminated when they were near death. Well, he cites many cases where the person was not near death, in one case conscious enough to maneuver his wheel chair, yet the family decided that this was not the ’quality of life’ he would have wanted. His feeding tube was cut off, Yes, there are more than one or two people in this nation who are being starved and dehydrated to death. It’s become a pretty common "final medical procedure."
Mr. Smith points out that there is a great difference between prolonging life when all hope for recovery is gone and acting to end the life of someone who is not dying. He relates chilling stories about people who had made ’living wills’ but, after receiving proper medical care, decided to alter their wills. They were deemed ’incompetent’ to change their own minds and put to death.
Even more chilling to the contemporary reader should be the chapter on how Hitler implanted the concept of "quality of life" in German society. He assured everyone that no one would have the power to euthanize an individual except within ’strict guidelines’. Does that sound familiar? It should. That’s exactly what’s happening in our society right now. Remember, having guidelines doesn’t mean they will be followed, or that they won’t suffer the same fate as our Constitution; now widely seen as ’evolving’ guidelines to be interpreted in whatever way judges like. However, we digress. Next, Hitler used an extremely deformed baby as the first test case for euthanasia; oh, excuse us, a compassionate society’s honoring of the child’s "right to die." Again... does anything ring a bell? First it’s the children, born or unborn, who don’t really have a life yet; they’re rather disposable as Roe v. Wade demonstrated.
Gradually, "the people" began to see how sensible it all was. After all, the ’common good’ was served by ridding society of those burdensome ’defectives’, those ’useless eaters’. In fact, society was considered one organism which would benefit by cutting off or killing its undesirable parts. Collectivism at its worst. No longer was the individual central in importance; the emphasis shifted to the collective, to society.
Eventually, German hospitals became the government death camps, family members would load up a feeble individual who probably wouldn’t like to live "that way" and take them to the hospital. From 1939 to 1945, more than 200,000 people were euthanized by government doctors. It took not even a little push to move to the death camps of the Holocaust.
Yes, we as a nation faced death. We must make decisions that not only determine how our own lives will end, but what direction our culture is moving. Let us suggest that our Founding Fathers constituted our government, not to be a collective, but rather a government that was mandated to preserve the life and liberty of the individual. And those who recognize a higher power have been instructed to care for the needy among us. Who is more needy than the young, the disabled or the old?
Peter and Helen Evans, "http://peterandhelenevans.com. This husband and wife team - freelance writers and speakers - teach a philosophical approach to conservatism. They are also real estate agents in the Washington, DC area.
