Sarah's+Letter

Dear Mr. Wesley Smith,

Maybe you do not realize this, but we are a society that has developed beyond sustained hardship. We are efficient and we are masters of escape. Because of this, we are able to move beyond too much burden.

Credit cards, loans, payment plans - we buy now and pay later when we do not have the hard cash on hand. With a swipe, a flash, a wave, a flick of the hand, we can ease the pain of life and escape the burden of lacking.

If you had a Facebook, Mr. Smith, you would see just how marvelous a thing it is. We log on and immediately are connected seven hundred of our most intimate friends. We can escape loneliness, school, work, painful realities online.

Even our doctors and scientists have come to accept the fact that we desrve to be painless and without burden. Our pharmaceuticals treat just about every supposed condition and quirk that disrupts our daily lives.

Alcohol is a good thing. I mean, when life gets too tough, too old, too stale, whey shouldn't we be allowed to partake in an escape, to loosen up and make life great again. And if alcohol is good, marijuana is better, or any drug for that matter. They are used as a sweet release into another reality. Why deny that to somebody?

Euthanasia should belong on this list. Why suffer through life when you can just terminate it? Stage four cancer, paralysis, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, an old degrading body - why should an individual have to put up with this physical and emotional baggage? Doctors should be well-educated in not only the art of health, but also the art of death. They should not only be able to heal the sick but put down the sick when need be. Of course, it is the individual's choice whther or not they want ot continue their life. The individual has rights. The individual is concerned with the here and now. The individual knows best. Whatever he or she decides to do is perfectly acceptable. What is right for him may not be what is right for her, but that is all right. Her truth may not be his truth, but that is the truth of the matter: that all is truth.

...

Okay, I can't keep this up much longer. I understand to some extent, this side of the argument. But going deeper, I personally find it to be ridden with holes, relevant to our culture alone, and ultimately illogical and backward.

Her is what I humbly and with much meditation think:

Franjo Seper articulated in the Catholic Declaration on Euthanasia that "suffereing, especially suffering during the last moments of life, has a special place in God's saveing plan." But he also reasons that the use of painkillers to alleviate suffering is still