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Excerpts
from an address to the Hemlock Society national convention I am a practicing Christian, an ordained minister, and an elected bishop in my church. I deeply support Physician Assisted Suicide. I believe, if and when, a person arrives at that point in human existence when death has become a kinder alternative than hopeless pain, and when a chronic dependency on narcotics begins to produce the loss of personal dignity, then the basic human right to choose how and when to die should be guaranteed by law and respected by our communities of faith. Some religious people say the Bible condemns suicide in any form. The most amazing thing about people who seek to end an argument by quoting the authority of the Bible is that most of these quoters are woefully ignorant of the content of the Bible itself. I have discovered in my life that no one is a strict biblical literalist, not even Gerry Fallwell or Pat Robertson. They are all what I would call “selective literalists.” They simply ignore those parts of the biblical text that have become inoperative or inconvenient. They quote only those portions of the text which they assume buttress their position. It is their attempt to say, “If you disagree with me, you are really disagreeing with God.” History has not treated this power play kindly. I as a Christian believe that life is sacred, that it is the ultimate gift of God. Because I hold this belief I am committed to living every moment that I am given as deeply, richly, and fully as I can. But the times that you and I live and the shape of our consciousness in many areas of life have changed dramatically through the ages. Human knowledge has expanded enormously, which means, “new occasions teach new duties.” I today can no longer just quote the wisdom of antiquity as a passive observer of life. It is not enough just to be a committed Christian, I must also take seriously what it means to be a citizen of the 21st Century. I am the beneficiary of a vast revolution in scientific and medical thinking. I possess a reservoir of data that was not available to the people who authored the Bible. This is the gift of the modern world to me. I have watched life expectancy expand remarkably. I live in a world of quadruple bypasses, chemo and radiation therapy, organ transplants, miracle drugs and incredible life support systems. These stirring achievements represent human beings taking on the power we once ascribed only to God. We have enabled this generation to live in a way that previous generations could never have imagined. When medical science expands the boundary and quality of life, Christians do not complain. We rather rejoice because we believe it confirms our conviction that life is holy. It is one thing to expand life and it is quite another to postpone death. When medical science shifts from expanding the life and quality of life and begins simply to postpone the reality of death, why are we not capable of saying that the sacredness of life is no longer being served. What happens to both our courage and our faith? Is a breathing cadaver with no hope of restoration, an example of the sacredness of life? I do not think so. Do we human beings, including those of us who claim to be Christian, not have the right to say “that is not the way I choose to die.” I believe we do. I prefer to think of death not as an enemy, but as a friend even a brother, as St. Francis Assisi once suggested. The time has come, I believe, for Christians to embrace death not as an enemy to be defeated but as an aspect of life’s holiness to be embraced. Death is life’s shadow. It walks with us through the entire course of our days. We embrace death as a friend because we honor life. I honor the God of Life by living fully. I do not honor this God by clinging to a life that has become an empty shell. I want to live my days surrounded by those I love and to experience the joy and vitality of my children and grandchildren. When those realities begin to fade away, then I want to leave this world and those I love with a positive vision, and I want them to see in me one who lived and loved deeply and well, until loving and living deeply was no longer possible. I want them to remember me as a person who was vital to the end, as one who was in possession of all that makes me who I am and one that died well. My deepest desire is always to choose death with dignity over a life that has either become hopelessly painful and dysfunctional or empty and devoid of meaning. That is the only way I know that would allow me to honor the God in whose image I believe I was created. I think this choice should be legal. I will work therefore through the political processes to seek to create a world where advanced directives are obeyed and where physicians will assist those who choose to die with the ability to do so at the appropriate time. The God whom I experience as a Source of Life can surely not be served by those in whom death is simply postponed after real life has departed. I also think the choice to do so should be acclaimed as both moral and ethical, a human right if you will. Patient Choices at End
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