The last three days we have looked at the first five reasons to oppose the assisted suicide/death with dignity bill making its way the New Yor5k State Legislature. For those arguments see https://nycshepherd.com/2015/03/04/part-3-seven-major-reasons-all-new-yorkers-including-state-senator-diane-savino-should-lobby-against-the-assisted-suicidedeath-with-dignity-bill/

Today we look at the final two reasons :

• The bill misunderstands dying with dignity

Dying with dignity doesn’t means dying without pain and suffering. Sadly, pain and suffering are a part of the human condition. I had the sacred privilege of being in attendance as individuals leave this life for the next. They all experienced some level of physical pain and even more emotional pain because of who they were leaving behind.  Gratefully, we live in a world where much of the pain associated with physical death can be lessened through pain medicine. There is very little that can be done about the emotional pain. But dying with dignity is not the absence of pain. Death with dignity is the presence of acceptance of a Will greater than my own and then making the most of every moment one has with friends and family. Death with dignity means I walk out of this life recognizing that it is not me who calls the shots but Someone else.  Death with dignity means I let God make the call as to when I leave this earth. Death with dignity means I understand that there is a process that I must go through that has a greater purpose than I can understand and I will let it play out. We often complain of physicians playing God. The fact is this bill promotes both the physician who holds the pen for the script and the patient who has the bill in hand to gods. It promotes a pseudo sense of control over one’s own destiny. Let’s not perpetrate this illusion by a bad legislative act.

•   This bill misunderstands the source of human dignity.

Why does any person deserve dignity? Why do we value someone so much that we desire they be treated with dignity even in death? Their value doesn’t come from their place on the food chain. This is not a position the human species evolved to. Our sense of dignity for each other is from our Judean/Christian roots.  Our dignity or value comes from the belief that we are created in the womb in the image of God. This Judean/Christian foundation spills over to our Declaration of Independence which states “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”  Our Founding Fathers knew that our dignity, my dignity, your dignity comes from God. God manufactured me. God alone has the right to choose my expiration date. I die with dignity when I accept that. When I see myself not as a sovereign but as someone who lives under the rule of Another I can be one who experiences value and dignity in life and in death.  The source of our value, the Almighty, the Creator, is completely ignored in this bill. This bill however can’t be ignored. It must be defeated.