The first principle of the Culture of Life is that human life is an inviolable gift from God. Our love of God should cause us to shun euthanasia, which the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) calls a “murderous act” (CCC, 2277). The Catechism also explains: “Discontinuing medical procedures that are burdensome, dangerous, extraordinary, or disproportionate to the expected outcome can be legitimate; it is the refusal of ‘over-zealous’ treatment. Here one does not will to cause death; one’s inability to impede it is merely accepted” (CCC, 2278).
Contrary to a popular myth, the Living Will did not spring from a patient’s rights movement fed up with over-zealous and unwanted treatment being “forced” on terminally ill patients. Rather, the Living Will was invented by the “right to die” movement as a step toward legalization of euthanasia. Few people are aware of this fact. Yet knowing the history of the movement to legalize euthanasia (and assisted suicide) is essential to understanding and combating the Culture of Death.
The Euthanasia Society of America (ESA) was founded in New York in 1938. Its goal was to gain social and legal acceptance for the “right” to kill vulnerable human beings (people the organization called “mental defectives” and “incurables”). In 1939, ESA proposed legislation for “voluntary” euthanasia. According to its treasurer, attorney Charles Nixdorff, ESA “hoped eventually to legalize the putting to death of ‘non-volunteers’ beyond the help of medical science.” In a pamphlet entitled Merciful Release, ESA explained its strategy: “The public is readier to recognize the right to die than the right to kill, even though the latter be in mercy.” ESA miscalculated — the public was not ready for either.
After numerous failed attempts to legalize euthanasia, ESA leaders realized that, to be successful, they first had to change both medical ethics and public morals. Thus, in 1967, ESA established the Euthanasia Educational Council (EEC) which launched a massive education campaign and introduced the Living Will as a tool to promote discussion of the “right to die.”
The author of EEC’s Living Will, attorney Luis Kutner, expressed concern about medicine’s increasing ability to prolong life in “a state of indefinite vegetated animation.” Such dehumanizing language was accompanied by outrageous claims that modern medicine was torturing terminally ill patients and stripping them of every shred of dignity by prolonging their lives. The “right to die” movement’s educational strategy was twofold: first, prey on people’s fears in order to convince them that they wouldn’t want to live like that; next, introduce the Living Will as a way for people to die on their own terms.
The original Living Will was a directive to physicians by which the signer refused medical treatment in the event he or she had a “terminal condition” (a term which could be loosely interpreted) and was deemed incapable of making decisions. The Living Will intentionally blurred the critical distinctions between allowing a person to die naturally and intentionally causing death.
ESA’s masterminds became concerned that the word “euthanasia” (reminiscent of the Nazi killing program) might be hindering their success. Thus, in 1975, the Euthanasia Society of America was renamed the Society for the Right to Die (SRD). Shortly thereafter, the organization experienced its first legislative victory when the California “Natural Death Act” became law in 1976. Living Wills were now legal documents in one state and the push was on to legalize them in every state.
Early Living Will laws did not accomplish all that SRD hoped for, but they did open a door that should have been kept locked. These laws have been repeatedly amended to broaden their scope. For instance, Living Will laws today apply not only to patients who have been diagnosed with a “terminal condition,” but also to non-dying patients in so-called “persistent vegetative state.” And now a person may choose, when signing a Living Will, to refuse artificially provided nutrition and hydration (tube-feeding), even if their omission would be the direct cause of death. Legal acceptance of a “right to die” by withdrawal or withholding of “life-sustaining” treatment and/or food and fluids means that medical professionals now have a “duty to kill.” After all, a “right” must be enforced.
In 1989, John Cardinal O’Connor, Archbishop of New York, predicted: “The ‘right to die’ — which really means that hospitals and doctors and other health care ‘providers’ will be required to kill — will dwarf the abortion phenomenon in magnitude, in numbers, in horror…’Right to die’ laws will one day force a patient to prove that he or she has a right to live, just as we are now forced to prove that the unborn child has a right to live.”
The Living Will was not only deceptively promoted, it was deceptively named. It has nothing to do with living.
(This article originally appeared on the MichNews.com website and is used by permission of the author.)
