Oregon allows physician-assisted suicide; California doesn’t. Brittany Maynard chose November 1 as the day she would end her own life, with the help of a doctor. And I’m sad to say she carried through with her plans—despite the enormous outpouring of love and prayers from people across the country who urged her to change her mind.
One of those people was Kara Tippetts, a 38-year-old married mother of four who knows well the fear and pain of a stage 4 cancer diagnosis. Her approach to illness has been to rest on the grace of God and to find power in living faithfully moment by moment, squeezing the goodness out of each day, and exhibiting, no matter what the prognosis, “mundane faithfulness,” which is the name of her blog.
Kara tells a story of mundane faithfulness in her new book, The Hardest Peace.
Kara has used her voice to reach out to Brittany Maynard, asking her to reconsider, gently telling her that there’s more to life than good physical health and the avoidance of suffering. “Suffering is not the absence of goodness,” Kara says in an open letter to Brittany, “it is not the absence of beauty, but perhaps it can be the place where true beauty can be known. ...That last kiss, that last warm touch, that last breath, matters—but it was never intended for us to decide when that last breath is breathed.”
Kara has been learning that lesson on her own journey. Go to her blog and you’ll see that Kara is not throwing around a lot of cheap Christian clichés. Here’s an entry from October 18:
“How do you love when you are at the bottom of yourself? The last gulp of a drink you feel tentative to swallow? How do you swallow that last gulp of life and fight to live it well? I’m struggling today,” she writes, “and I knew it would be a hard one. Chemo brings a low that I struggle with words to describe.”
And then on October 20: “...The hand held, the time spent reading together, the little loves that when faced with death have become the giant important moments in my life. The time praying together, laughing together, cooking together and crying together. They add up to a life well lived. [They] are simply the best of life.”
Friends, let's pray for Kara and for all those facing terminal illness—as well as for their families. And let’s also pray for our culture, that we learn that life is always a gift, without exception.
| Commentary |
CMA VP for Government Relations Jonathan Imbody:
"Even if moving stories like those of Brittany Maynard prompt some to think we
need to legalize assisted suicide, it's crucial to remember that such laws
affect many more people and have many more consequences than originally
imagined. The elderly, the handicapped and the depressed all become much more
vulnerable under assisted suicide laws. You as a health professional know that
much can go on behind the curtain that will never show up on a chart or in
court. What appears on a document as a voluntary decision may in truth be
coerced or otherwise improperly influenced--by an unduly negative presentation
of a prognosis, or by family members who want an easy way out for
themselves."Laws teach principles, and assisted suicide laws teach that suicide is not only good but a right. The right to die too easily becomes the duty to die. How many elderly patients already consider themselves a burden? How many heirs already wish their benefactor would die? What is a severely depressed teen supposed to think when society legalizes suicide?
"I know from conducting on-site research in the Netherlands what happens when the medical community and society make medical killing normal. I spoke to a son whose father, who had chosen euthanasia out of fear and a lack of his wife's support to choose life-extending surgery, told the doctor he didn't want to die after the doctor had administered the first shot to put him to sleep. The doctor ignored his statement and quickly administered the lethal injection. A grandfather asked for help with a painful thrombosis and instead died at the hands of a physician who interpreted his request as one for euthanasia.
"When doctors gain the power to kill, no patient remains safe. Hippocrates helped transform medicine with a proscription against assisting suicide--a measure that for the first time protected patients. Do all in your power to see that your state does not turn the clock back to the days when patients had to fear their physicians."
Action
State Legislative Issues - Physician-Assisted Suicide
Resources
Jonathan Imbody Senate Testimony on Euthanasia
Kara Tippetts, blog
"Small wonders" - Kara Tippetts - World magazine
CDD STAT Interview with Kara Tippetts
Euthanizing Medicine, a presentation on the implications of legalizing physician-assisted suicide
Top Reasons Why Physician-Assisted Suicide Should Not Be Legal
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