Several years ago, my stepson’s dog, Mojo,
lost his "mojo". He was a beautiful, sweet dog who lived for 16
years. His long red coat, floppy ears, and slobbery tongue endeared
him to our whole extended family. But when he started having violent
seizures, we knew his life was coming to an end. After the seizures
got really bad, the family made the decision to call the vet. She and
her assistant came to our house. We gathered around Mojo,
who lay quivering on the outdoor patio, and we showered him with a
final round of affection. With great reverence and tenderness, the vet
gave him a shot and he drifted peacefully to sleep, never to wake
again. With the vet and the assistant patiently waiting, we sat for
quite a while to make our goodbyes before they wrapped him in a blanket
and took him away to be cremated.
Very often, we treat dying dogs and cats more divinely and humanely
than we treat dying human beings. As a pastor, I have watched doctors
let dying patients suffer needlessly for the sake of avoiding exposure
to lawsuits. I’ve seen families agonize about whether to end torturous
life-extending treatments for loved ones. Many of my parishioners
emphatically have told me that they do not want to be kept going with
tubes and ventilators when their lives are really over.
If
we have the faith of Easter, if we really believe that life is bigger
than death, then why would we fight death when its natural time has
come? If we know that death doesn’t get the last word, then we can
face it with dignity.
Today we have an historic opportunity
to support legislation that will allow Californians to have more humane
end-of-life options. AB 374, the Compassionate Choices Act, is moving
through the state legislature and has a real chance of becoming law if
we show it enough support by writing our legislators and governor. AB
374 is very similar to the assisted suicide law in Oregon.
The Oregon law’s system of checks, balances, and full medical
accountability have proven effective in offering terminally ill
patients a way to end their own lives before having to endure needless
suffering at death. Relatively few terminally ill people have chosen
to use the law, but many, many more have been comforted to know that
they had the choice if they wanted it.
I hold life to be
sacred, as do the faithful people who oppose AB 374 on religious
grounds. But faith does not demand that we extend life artificially
when it is time to die, or that we refrain from relieving the suffering
of people who face terrible pain in the death process. Individual
human beings are of supreme value partly because they have innate
freedom of choice about how their own lives should unfold. People have
a God-given right to certain choices about the manner of their own
death, and it's time the law reflected this reality.
Jesus
used his God-given freedom for the sake of awakening others to their
freedom. He risked crucifixion because of his faith that death was a
part of life, and not the other way around. His death was a
vindication of life. There is a vast difference between the suicide of
a person who might otherwise have been helped to have a longer, meaningful life by a therapeutic intervention, and the
carefully-monitored suicide of someone who is grateful for having lived
out a good life in a body that is no longer viable.
May the
faith of Easter be resurrected into action by those among us who want
to keep our “mojo” as long as we have the power to make choices, and
help others do the same.