Well, here we are already at the
end of October. Please note our Mass schedule for All Saints and All Souls Day
Masses. Please remember to VOTE next week. If you are a citizen it is your DUTY
to vote. Even if you wish you had other choices, even if you find it
distasteful, please remember that politics is the art of the possible. You do
not need a perfect candidate (they don’t exist), but you do need to make a
prudential decision to exercise your responsibility in choosing our elected
officials. Good luck!
October is also
RESPECT LIFE MONTH, and as we come to the end of this month, I wish to raise up
for your consideration the issue of assisted suicide. Life is a precious gift,
and while we are not required to do everything possible to extend life, we most
certainly cannot positively act to end our life. That is suicide.
Recently the State
of California passed a physician assisted suicide law. When I was Pastor of Old
Saint Mary’s Church in Chinatown, San Francisco, I regularly went to the
Catholic Lobby Days to the state legislature in Sacramento, CA. Every year one
of the issues we talked to our legislators about was the issue of assisted
suicide. As Catholics we opposed making assisted suicide legal because of the
immorality of suicide. Our biggest supporter in this struggle were the disabled
and handicapped rights groups. They foresaw that when physician assisted
suicide became legal, the insurance companies would be strongly motivated to
urge people to take the much cheaper option of suicide than continuing to
provide expensive medical and prescription coverage.
Now their fears
have become a reality. You can get a moving and perceptive instance of this
desire of the insurance companies to encourage suicide by watching a 15-minute
video produced by the Center for Bioethics and Culture Network (CBC). Titled
“Compassion and Choice DENIED,” it tells the story of Jennifer Lahl, who has a
terminal illness but wishes to live for the sake of her four children. Once
California adopted the assisted suicide law, her medical coverage was denied,
though she was able to get the life-ending drugs. I found it a moving story. The
video is available on YouTube, and also at www.cbc-network.org. I recommend it to
you.
It is only a
matter of time before assisted suicide becomes an issue in Texas. The financial
motivations for insurance companies are very high. Many people, believing they
are giving people a choice to end their life, do not realize the ramifications
for those with terminal illnesses who do NOT want to leave family and loved
ones and the beauty of this life. All of us are terminal, but none of us are
the masters of our final day on earth.
Our respect for
life is comprehensive. It includes protection for life in the womb. It includes
respect and care for human life from birth through childhood, adulthood and old
age. It refuses to sanction the death penalty. It cares for the quality of
every human life. And finally, respect for life does not kill people when they
become inconvenient or a burden. Life is sacred and must be treated as such. We
know that people who suffer chronic pain and feel abandoned and alone are under
tremendous pressure, and hence sometimes choose to end their life. We want to
offer them support and help to live meaningfully rather than to condemn them. But
we also do not want them to feel financial pressure from insurance companies to
choose the cheaper option of ending their life.
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