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Seeing that no one escapes death – we (individually and as the Church) need to discuss death and dying.
In Gallup’s 2011 Values and Beliefs poll, doctor-assisted suicide emerged as the most controversial cultural issue, with Americans divided 45% vs. 48% over whether it is morally acceptable or morally wrong. 45% said it was morally acceptable to have your doctor help you kill yourself and 48% felt it was morally wrong.
I read this poll and later in the day found two articles that illustrate the division.
The first article was actually a blog entitled, “Why I Considered Assisted-Suicide” written by Hillary St. Pierre, a critical care and emergency nurse prior to her diagnosis with Hodgkin’s disease in 2006 at the age of 23. She has chronicled her battle with cancer and health care on her blog, baldiesblog.blogspot.com, which was listed by The American Cancer Society among The Top Ten for patient-written cancer resources.
Mrs. St. Pierre shared the two reasons she considered assisted suicide; First, severe depression which was coupled with a ‘desire to protect the ones she loved’ from the agony of watching her suffer, the burden of her care and being a drain on finances. The feeling of wanting to regain power and control after feeling powerless at her diagnosis was her second reason.
She reports being shocked at how easy it was to find online instructions for assisted suicide, but ultimately couldn’t go through with it and was grateful she hadn’t set up an appointment, because she may have felt obligated to follow through.
Her closing thoughts are what I found most fascinating. “The dying process is a deeply personal individual experience. There is no guidebook on dying with dignity. Dying in a controlled manner to regain power, alleviate loved ones’ stressors or to stop your own pain can be enticing.” Ultimately it was her concern for her family that led her to choose life; she didn’t want them to deal with the emotional fallout associated with suicide.
The second article was about a retired New York Times reporter who wrote a book about helping her 88-year-old mother, Estelle, starve to death. In an excerpt from the book, “A Bittersweet Season,” Jane Gross describes her mother’s increasing dissatisfaction with life as her health deteriorated, and her mounting desire to die, despite the fact that she was not terminally ill.
When Estelle spelled out ‘NOW’ to Jane, Jane dutifully met with the hospice staff and “began the lengthy and grueling process of her mother’s death by starvation and dehydration – a process the staff told Gross would only last a week, but actually lasted 13 days.”
Jane writes in the book that she wanted Estelle to hurry up and die, and was ashamed to admit it, because the watching and waiting were so hard.
The first article highlighted one woman’s choice to endure suffering for the sake of her family – a selfless act, while the second article featured two women focused on themselves and their needs– selfish actions.
One mother thought about the long-term consequences of her choice for her family while the other was only aware of her dissatisfaction with no thought to what the long-term consequences for her daughter would be.
How will Jane live with the knowledge that she helped kill her mother? Will she become an advocate for legalizing assisted suicide to justify her actions or will she come to recognize that helping her mother die was not the right way to handle her mother’s desire to die?
As Mrs. St. Pierre said, the dying process is deeply personal and I believe that until you are facing either your own death or the death of a loved one, it is easy to have knee-jerk, yes/no responses to polling questions. But how are you and I really going to handle the prospect of death (ours or that of a loved one) in the face of a cancer or terminal illness diagnosis or an on-going debilitating handicap or simply old age?
I want to follow in John Stott’s footsteps, serving the Lord until my body wears out. A recent article in World Magazine reported on the great author’s death on July 27, 2011. According to Benjamin Homan, president of John Stott Ministries, “Stott’s health had deteriorated sharply in recent weeks and he had been in severe pain: His body was just wearing out. Stott’s close friends and associates were at his bedside reading scripture and listening to Handel’s ‘Messiah’ when he died in the afternoon.”
It seems Rev. Stott lived out the words of Psalm 139, verse 16 that states ‘All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be,’ trusting God to perfectly manage the number of days he resided in his earthly body?
Seeing that no one escapes death – we (individually and as the Church) need to discuss death and dying so we are prepared to meet our Maker at His appointed time. Maybe it is Psalm 90, verse 12 we should really be focusing on when it comes to death. “Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain wisdom.”
