A woman close to my wife’s family is dying of cancer. She is incoherent and has stopped eating or drinking. One of her sons wants to keep her alive for another month. He wants to reduce her pain medication so she is more coherent and have her go through another round of chemotherapy. The question of whether or not to give such treatment is very valid. At this point, the burden of such treatment and the suffering caused by reducing her pain medication would probably outweigh any benefit. It would be morally acceptable in this case to cease all treatment and to allow her to die. Unfortunately, the arguments in favor of doing so have all been couched in the Culture of Death. While the conclusions may be valid, the language used to argue for those conclusions are horribly wrong.

• “That’s no way to live” – the assumption with this argument is that the present value of a person’s life is measured by the person’s ability to do the things the person used to love doing. An ethics worksheet promoted by our Catholic hospital system even goes so far as to ask what things you enjoy doing and to decide if you’d want to go on living being unable to do those things. Life has value no matter what we are able or unable to do. In fact, in our success-obsessed world, life may finally take on its true meaning when we are unable to do anything.
• “Just put her out of her misery” – the assumption in this statement is that suffering is always bad. This assumption is found everywhere in the medical community. Compassionate people do not wish to see others suffer. Suffering is not something that Christians seek out (mortification and self-denial are not quite the same thing as the kind of suffering we are talking about here). However, we must also realize that suffering can have great value. Suffering can make us more compassionate, can atone for our sins and the sins of others, can draw us closer to God, and can teach us how to receive the love and care of others. Loved ones who watch a family member or a friend suffer learn what it means to truly love through the most difficult times. It is OK to feel relief when someone dies – gladness that they are no longer suffering. However, it is not OK to hasten their death so that they will not have to suffer.
• “Let her die with some dignity” – this statement misunderstands what dignity is. Dignity does not come from our abilities or from our self-determination. Dignity comes from the fact that we are made in the image and likeness of God, and especially that we are created with the ability to give and to receive love. Someone who is suffering, who is incoherent, and who is at death’s door dies with dignity when she is surrounded by people she loves and who has loved her. Whether she is aware of their presence or not, the love that she has built in her lifetime comes to bear on her moment of death. This is what it means to die with dignity.

It is difficult to watch someone we love deteriorate and suffer before they die. Moral discernment during these difficult times is complicated by our compassion, concern and personal suffering. That is why the Church gives us moral guidance through the principle of ordinary and extraordinary means of treatment.

The problem with the statements above is that they are often made by faithful Catholics. We have adopted the language of the Culture of Death. The teachings of Christ’s Church help us to take solace not only in a life well lived, but in a death suffered in integrity, hope and love. The Culture of Death treats human life in a utilitarian way, giving it value only as much as it is productive. It adds burden to death by making us guilty for any suffering experienced by the dying and by making us think that we have an obligation to control a person’s death. Catholics need to frame arguments about end-of-life issues in the Culture of Life and the hope given to us by Jesus Christ.

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