A dystopian attempt at dignity

Many Christians in New York State are holding their breaths, praying that Gov. Kathy Hochul will find wisdom and understanding and veto Bill S.138, for the “use of medication for medical aid in dying.” New York will be the 11th state to allow physician assisted death if she signs the bill. Nonetheless, one can make an educated guess about how the governor will vote unless God intervenes.

In the justification for the bill, the authors write that “The national debate that accompanied Ms. [Brittany] Maynard’s plight focused the nation on the desire of patients with a terminal illness to determine for themselves—how and when they die. ... Patients should not be forced to relocate to another state or to leave the country to control how their lives end. Patients seek to die with dignity, on their own terms, typically in their own homes, surrounded by their family and other loved ones.” Britanny Maynard, a resident of California, ended her own life in 2014, in Portland, Ore., at the age of 29.

The New York bill, written in bland, legislative style, promises that a “mentally competent, terminally ill patient may request medication to be self-administered for the purpose of hastening the patient’s death provided the requirements set forth in the act are met, and to provide certain protection and immunities to health care providers and other persons, including a physician who prescribes medication in compliance with the provisions of the article to the terminally ill patient to be self-administered by the patient.”

What are the requirements? The patient must have a prognosis of 6 months or less to live, be 18 or older, and be mentally competent to make an informed decision. What are the safeguards? Two physicians must agree that the patient has less than 6 months of life and is not being “coerced.” All end-of-life options are to be discussed. And finally, the patient “must be able to self-ingest the medication.” Furthermore, the bill promises that no doctor will be forced to administer this kind of “care.” Anyone “attempting to coerce a patient will face criminal prosecution.” And article 2899-1 “provides that a physician, pharmacist, other health care provider or other person shall not be subject to civil, administrative or criminal liability, penalty or professional disciplinary action by any government for taking reasonable good-faith action or refusing to act.”

It’s hard not to descend into cynical sarcasm in contemplating this moral outrage. The offer of death begins with “18 and older and only 6 months to live” and rapidly, at least from what we have witnessed north of the border in Canada, ends up being open to the depressed or the mentally distressed. And one can’t help but notice the possibility of financial savings. Nursing care is not cheap, prolonged treatment can be exhausting, and, what of generational wealth swallowed up by end-of-life care?

It feels dystopian to live in a society where the government promises that doctors and other medical professionals won’t be sued for “taking reasonable good-faith action or refusing to act” when what we’re talking about is sending a person home with poison to “self-ingest.” You don’t have to swallow it, they say, but if you want to keep your dignity, you will.

The problem is, there is nothing very dignified about death no matter which way you arrive there. Death is a degradation because the soul is ripped from the body and the body goes into the ground and decays. Where the dignity comes in is the posture of the mortal being before suffering. How you or I face the inevitable end has the power to proclaim the hope of the resurrection, faced, as we are, toward the cross and the sufferings of Christ who destroyed death. 

It's not proper to make peace with death like this. It isn’t empathetic, or compassionate, or reasonable. Doctors are meant to save life and offer relief from pain. Legislators and governors are supposed to make laws that are just and moral. The suffering and infirm should be offered hope, not the subtle, unspoken insinuation that his last days on earth are not worth it, that her presence, however brief and full of pain, is not a gift to those who have to stay behind. Lord, have mercy.