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This edition of the Life Issues Forum is available in English and Spanish, and has been posted to our website.
The Life Issues Forum is a bi-weekly column by Pro-Life Secretariat staff addressing the latest issues on the culture of life. Columns may be reprinted as they appear here (in full and without alteration) without further permission.
In Christ,
The Pro-Life Secretariat
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LIFE ISSUES FORUM FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Speaking a Language of Life August 25, 2017 Caitlin Thomas 
In
the Church's efforts to teach about the grave evil of assisted suicide
and the threats it poses, we must use clear and vigorous language. And
it is always, always important that we do so with love.
Assisted
suicide is suicide. In the few states where it is legal, physicians
willing to do so prescribe lethal drugs at the request of patients
seeking the drugs to end their own lives. Proponents of assisted suicide
use terms like "death with dignity" and "aid in dying." But these are
misleading. They are the sickly-sweet phrases of a poisonous ideology
that attacks our full dignity and worth as human beings.
These
phrases go beyond word games and become flat-out contradictions
carefully etched into law. In fact, every state law (and proposed bill)
legalizing assisted suicide in this country follows Oregon's law,
proclaiming, "the actions taken in accordance with [the law] shall not,
for any purposes, constitute suicide [or] assisted suicide." So,
according to the law itself, assisted suicide isn't assisted suicide?
The only sensible response to this legal blustering must be something
like this sentiment from a wise character in C.S. Lewis' The Great Divorce:
"Every disease that submits to a cure shall be cured: but we will not
call blue yellow to please those who insist on having jaundice."
We
should not be seduced by slippery language into ignoring hard truths.
The dying process can be painful, messy, full of uncertainty and
difficult questions-just like life. But there is death with
authentic dignity: dying at peace with God and our loved ones. Dying or
terminally ill persons deserve the best care we have to offer, including
appropriate treatment of symptoms and pain relief. There is a way to
face this process with peace, not by hastening death, but by
experiencing the support and loving care that our society should offer
to those preparing for death. Assisted suicide, on the other hand, hurts
the individual and the entire human family, sending a message
that some lives are "completed" or not as valuable as others. We should
kill the pain, not the patient.
Truth
always walks hand-in-hand with love. It is not enough to say, "suicide
is bad." We must also say, "life is good"--especially when life is old,
fragile, differently abled, so young and so small our eyes cannot see
it, or of a different skin color or place of origin.
We
should learn how to best love those who are close to death. We should
pray for holy deaths for them and for ourselves, recognizing that Jesus
brings us to new life with Him through His death and resurrection. We
should pray for the grace to build a true culture of life. And we should
affirm the goodness of life in all that we do and say.
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Caitlin Thomas is a
staff assistant for the Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities of the U.S.
Conference of Catholic Bishops. To read the U.S. bishops' 2011 policy
statement on assisted suicide and related resources, visit www.usccb.org/
