Choosing the easy way out, Members of Parliament last Friday, voted in favor of physician-assisted suicide for the terminally ill who are expected to die within six months.

As a Registered Nurse this, of course, is abhorrant to me. I didn’t get into health care to kill people, or to help them kill themselves. I have no problems with allowing nature to take its course. There’s no moral obligation to keep people alive by any means necessary. But that is a far stretch from basically giving up on them and killing them, or assisting them to kill themselves.

Why are we at this point? Because people have lost confidence in the healthcare system. People don’t believe doctors and nurses care enough to care for them well in their last days. They are afraid of experiencing, or have experienced, insufferable pain, with little action on the part of doctors or nurses, even though we have the medications and other therapies to address horrible pain. They are also victims of a culture that teaches that one’s personal dignity is connected to one’s personal autonomy, so if you lose the ability to get yourself up to the bathroom, you’ve lost your dignity. Why go on with life?

I recall an incident in a hospital where I worked briefly of a doctor coming out of a patient’s room and instructing me to administer a dose of dilaudid to the patient. I looked in the room and the patient was walking around the room looking for her cell phone charger. I told the doctor, “Look, I’ve had dilaudid pain. When I have dilaudid pain, I’m not looking for my cell phone charger. I’m looking for Jesus!” The doctor rolled her eyes and said, “Just give it to her.” In the meantime, on the same floor, there was a man down the hall who had just had abdominal surgery. He was getting tylenol with codeine every six hours.

This doesn’t make sense. A woman who is clearly in very little pain is getting dilaudid, while a man who is is suffering post-op abdominal surgery is getting tylenol with codeine. No wonder patients have so little confidence in the care doctors provide.

But the solution is not to kill people. We have grown accustomed to killing people when we are confronted with people who are difficult to deal with. Abortion. Death Penalty. Genocide. It seems we’ve convinced ourselves that the easiest way to deal with difficult people is to kill them. And now, assisted suicide. We have the resources to address their needs. Frankly, it’s just easier not to be bothered. It’s easier to kill them, or to convince them that the easiest and best solution to their struggles is for them to die.

According to the 2023 data summary of Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act, people chose assisted suicide for the following reasons:

• Loss of dignity – 234 patients (63.8%)
• Losing control of bodily functions – 171 (46.6%)
• Concern about being a burden on family and friends – 159 (43.3%)
• Inadequate pain control – 126 (34.3%)
• Financial implications of treatment – 30 (8.2%)

Why are the dying convinced that they have lost their dignity? Is this connected to loss of bodily functions and, if so, why? Why do the dying feel like a burden to their families? Why are we leaving them in pain? Why are we ruining families financially because their loved one is dying? None of these reasons are related to an objective change in the dying person’s status as a human being made in God’s image and deserving of the respect due to such a one. It is all because of perception of who they are before others, or of others being unwilling to address their genuine needs. All of that can be fixed, but it takes work. Why are we not willing to do the work? Obviously we aren’t, because people feel like they should die, or want to die. We should be making their last days some of the most glorious of their lives. Why are we failing in that?

The Catholic faith recognizes the intrinsic dignity of every human person. This dignity is based on their having been made by God and in His image. It is not based on their moral rectitude or sanctity. Neither is it based on how easy it is for others to deal with them. It is a dignity all are bound to respect. It cannot be diminished by a person’s circumstances or even by the decisions they’ve made in life. The only time the Church allows for one person to take the life of another is under circumstances of either self-defense or the defense of others who cannot defend themselves. Taking the life, or assisting in taking the life, of a defenseless patient in a hospital bed, or convincing them that they should take their own lives, simply because we, as healthcare workers and as a healthcare system, do not want to be bothered extending to them the full repository of care options is monstrously immoral and speaks to the degredation of our own communal soul.

The obvious solution here is to address the genuine needs of the dying – their physical, emotional, spiritual, and familial/communal needs. No one should feel like they have to die. If someone is beyond the help of healthcare workers in terms of their physical health, and they are dying, there is no reason to keep them alive by extraordinary means, and keeping them out of pain and comfortable might even require care that will hasten death (though that must never be the reasons for providing such care).

For those who are terminally ill and within six months of death, family and healthcare workers can and ought to work together to make these last days some of the most glorious of their lives. Keep them comfortable. Keep them in touch. Assist them as needed. Let them know they are loved and their going will be a loss. Ask their prayers when they get to the kingdom. But don’t kill them, and don’t convince them that the best thing they could do is kill themselves. That is surrender to the devil and his wiles.

This is not the final vote for the UK. It is possible that, if amendments are not made, the bill will be voted down next time. But then there will be a next time, and a time after that. Good people must stand strong against the culture of death. It is the only thing to do

Be Christ for all. Bring Christ to all. See Christ in all.