According to the Vatican, those were the last words of Pope John Paul II some six hours before his death. A certain irony struck me as I heard the news report of those words today. It’s about the right to die.
We’re certainly all aware of the recent Terry Schiavo case in which family members battled in the courts to ascertain whether or not her wishes would be fulfilled. We’re also keenly aware of President Bush’s 11th hour intervention to keep the woman alive.
I find it interesting that the Pope asked his caregivers to let him die, refusing hospital care, and that this somehow seems to fit into Catholic/Christian doctrine even though it would appear that those opposed to the right to die – as they were in the Schiavo case – ought to have pressured the Vatican to forego the Pope’s wishes, opting instead for aggressive medical intervention right until the end.
Is there a certain hypocrisy here? Perhaps those right to life people aren’t even aware of how grey these issues are since they seem quite selective about how these decisions are made.
What is the difference between saying “let me go to the house of the father” and telling a spouse or family member that they do not wish to have extraordinary measures taken to keep them alive? I don’t see it.
It will be interesting to watch the reaction to the Pope’s last words. I suppose some will say that it was inevitable that he would die anyway, considering that he had Parkinson’s and was advanced in age. Is that the exception the right to lifer’s stance? Age? What about younger people with Parkinson’s? Do they have the same right to refuse treatment? Why not? Who decides?
The truth is that these right to die decisions are made every single day and no single advocacy group – especially one with such muddy standards as the right to lifers – and no government ought to have the right to step in and intervene. This is an issue of privacy. If that was good enough for the Pope, shouldn’t it be good enough for everyone else?
Isn’t that true about us all? đŸ™‚
I think the difference between the Pope and Schiavo is that the people who thought she should live thought that Michael Schiavo was lying about what she would want.
In theory, had she been able to speak and say “let me die” (or had written it down) it wouldn’t have been an issue.
Also, I think the parents said that she wouldn’t have wanted to die, so some people started ascribing all kinds of devious motivations for Michael to be saying that she should die.
I think that was the gist of it. I honestly didn’t pay all that much attention to the sensationalized bits of that story though.
In Schiavo’s cases, her wishes were the issue, however there are many other cases where the expressed wishes are well known and recorded, yet right to lifers oppose those too.
One more point – despite the years of court challenges and decisions that upheld Schiavo’s right to die, those who opposed removing the feeding tube absolutely refused to accept the scientific evidence and the results of the judiciary. So, in the end, there was nothing that would have sastified them except having their wishes granted – wishes that were supposedly based on some kind of standards. The question is – exactly what were those standards?
Just look at assisted suicide for an example of other cases, where wishes are known but the right to lifers oppose it anyway.
IMHO, it all stems from these people thinking they have a stronger moral system than anyone else. Therefore the basis of these decisions does not have to be based on any evidence or precedent; it only has to be based on what they think is right.
By that view, the desire of the person to die is also not a relevant factor in the decision making process, since their wish to die is the result of a morally inferior position.
That’s why I cringe when people on the left claim to stand on the moral high ground as well. The moral high ground is built atop a very unpredictable volcano.
What THEY think is right; that’s it.
And they believe that all of us belong to their god. And they believe that their holy books and their pontificators set forth the will of that god who owns us all.
Our laws, attitudes, and traditions are so steeped in religious presuppositions, that few people even question the government’s right to decide that our lives are not our own.
Why is suicide illegal ? Do I ultimately own myself, or can people of faith claim me as a child of their god, and rob me of the most basic human right of all ?
in the Schiavo case was the removal of life-sustaining systems, where in the Pope’s case they were never started. Sort of like a person deciding to die at home, without any fuss or bother.
It’s one great thing about hospice care; when my mom was in hospice, there were no machines, no tubes…just daily care until she slipped peacefully away in her sleep. (Wish it hadn’t looked so much like the hospital it was, though — if I designed a hospice it would be more like a hotel room, with play areas for kids when their parents come to visit sick relatives, and a garden courtyard where patients could come out in their wheelchairs if they were up to it…)