Greg's+Letter

Dear Mr. Wesley J. Smith,

First and foremost, thank you so much for your valuable time. I realize that you are an opinionated man who is entitled to your beliefs, so if at any time I question your judgment, please take no offense. Besides, I pretty much seem to agree with your ideologies anyways.

My name is Greg Oyan. I’m only 17 years old, but I do have a solid foundation of beliefs that I am capable of passionately defending. I am a conservative Christian and I think that life has an indeterminable value, and cannot be properly appraised by mere mortals. I don’t think that we humans can decide when life should be given and taken away, that responsibility lies upon the shoulders of God, and that’s the way it should be.

Human life is precious, and nothing can remove the value that human life has. Passive and active euthanasia undermine the value of human life by accelerating death, unnaturally initiating death, and disregarding the plan and potential that God has for a given individual. Some people disagree with you and I, Mr. Smith. Some people think that death’s circumstances should involve a choice, a preference. Yet, many people on Earth don’t have the medical technology to even be able to choose how they want to die, not to mention that for 4,000 years humans have died as they were supposed to die, naturally. God brought us into the world, so He should take us out as well. Unfortunately, that is not always the case because the cowardly refuse to face what we will all have to meet at one point or another, death.

Daniel James was a college-aged rugby player who broke his neck in a rugby scrum. With his parents’ help, Daniel killed himself at the Dignitas Clinic in Switzerland. Daniel’s parents called his death a, “Welcome relief from the ‘prison’ he felt his body had become.” Another newsflash, Daniel chose to die relatively shortly after he suffered his life-changing injury. What were Daniel's parents thinking? They said that the death of their only son is a relief? Hold up. Were they listening to what they were saying? Sure, they could've said that they wanted to end Daniel’s suffering, but they treated his life as though he didn’t have any potential or purpose left. The example of fellow rugby-scrum quadriplegic, Roger Addison, helped reinforce that Daniel could have lived a full life, a life of purpose. Addison broke his neck 42 years ago, and as an official at Roger’s former rugby club attested, “Roger has this huge belief that he is here for a purpose.” If Roger Addison suffered a similar injury to Daniel James, in a similar situation, with a similar lifestyle, why couldn’t Daniel have had the same successes that Roger had? Maybe Roger’s family was more supportive of him and didn’t let initial depression convince them to assist in the death of their son like Daniel’s parents so sorrowfully succumbed to. Maybe Daniel just needed a little more time to see that life was not over, that he was not just a body in a bed. I don’t think that we can know for certain why Daniel gave up his will to live, and why he was able to successfully end his life, but what I do know is that it was a sin, and wrong, not to mention tragic. As Dr. Peter Saunders of the Care Not Killing Alliance affirmed, “This young man, Daniel James, did not need help to kill himself; he needed help to live with severe disability.” Daniel did need help to live with a severe disability, and his parents failed him, the Dignitas Clinic failed him, and society failed him.

So what does it take to persistently pursue living in a situation or circumstance similar to Roger Addison or Daniel James? It can’t be easy to live when your body isn’t what the majority of functional people possess. You can’t do what other people do, and you can’t always do what you want to do. However, as Roger Addison’s case clearly suggested, it is possible to maintain a happy living situation. Simon Barnes broke his back on an assault course at the early age of 21, he humbly stated, “It’s tough to live with a body that only half works. You need an inexhaustible strength of spirit.” Good words. It seems as though the will to live is all anyone may need to actually…live, even in the most unfortunate and tragic of human circumstances. Although, it must be acknowledged that some events are so catastrophic that the patient is incapacitated beyond simple paralysis, and therefore unable to live biographically.

I think that the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland that helped kill Daniel James is a detestable organization. One of the doctors at Dignitas, Pieter Admiraal, said that assisted suicide is, “Compatible with the properly understood duties and responsibilities of a doctor.” What the heck? Didn’t the Hippocratic oath say pretty clearly that a doctor should do no harm? Yes, it did. So how is killing people or helping kill people helping them? It isn’t. It just makes any potential on earth to live a life of purpose and reason null and void, gone, decimated by the very people we should trust to keep us alive. Admiraal would then utter despicable nonsense like, “Active voluntary euthanasia is but one more way of delivering humane medical care.” Medical care is the process that people would probably describe as medical professionals doing what they can to care for you to the fullest of their efforts and abilities. Helping kill someone is absolutely, totally, completely against everything that the medical profession and the Hippocratic oath stands for. I think that Admiraal should be imprisoned; he is doing much more harm than good for his profession and for the world. Admiraal did raise an interesting question however, he asked, “Is letting die morally better than helping to die, or active euthanasia? I think not. – We are all terminally ill.” Yes, we are all terminally ill, but letting die is morally just, whereas helping die or killing is not. Admiraal stands for the medical professionals who have veered off course and need to review the oaths they have taken, and how they should be practicing medicine.

Terri Schiavo was a 27 year old insurance company employee who collapsed while at work and suffered serious brain damage. After 15 years on a ventilator, Schiavo died of starvation after her husband won a legal case that allowed hospital employees to essentially kill her by unplugging her feeding tube. Yes, it is highly unlikely that Schiavo would ever experience any biographical life again, but since so little is known about the actual state of consciousness that Schiavo lived in for 15 years, it seems unfair to assume that she was no longer human. Terri had only exhibited minor progressions over the course of 15 years, and she may have indeed been “gone.” However, what if Schiavo was still aware of her surroundings and her life? How can we know? I worked in the intensive care unit and emergency room at Santa Paula Hospital this summer and I saw first hand that people on ventilators are normally not feeling very well. Still, many of them, even a serious brain injury patient still had minor glimpses of hope throughout the weeks he was admitted at the hospital. Unfortunately, his family decided that he didn’t have the potential to get better. Doctors agreed, but they still said that only time would be able to yield progress if it were to come. I guess time is not what the family members of the bed-ridden man wanted for him. Whatever the case may be, I still find it very hard to actively assist in the death of another human being no matter the involvement. To turn off a ventilator or unplug a feeding tube is giving up, and I don’t like to give up. God hardwired our biological senses and instincts to want to live, to want to avoid a premature end at all costs, and killing people who can’t choose or communicate for themselves whether they want to die or not seems unfair. As Dr. Peter Saunders attested regarding assisted suicide, euthanasia, and condoning other such medical practices, “we are on a slippery slope.” We are, and as a society we need to gain traction once more over our modern technological capabilities, and live life how it was supposed to be lived, with one God.

Terminally ill patients have been known to say that they want to, “Die with dignity.” If people were to die with dignity by knowingly speeding up their deaths, then they are just cowards trying to avoid an imminent cessation of life that they perceive as undignified and probably painful or undesirable since many doubt the afterlife. In my opinion, I want to die and feel every single sensation that God has allowed me to feel. You only get to live on Earth once, so I might as well fight through and embrace everything that comes at me. That is dignified, and glorious if you ask me. A soldier fighting and dying on the battlefield is more dignified and honorable than someone dying with a needle or a pill like a spoiled coward. Registered nurse Betty Ferrel said that a patient of hers voiced, “I want my sons to remember that I fought until the end.” That sounds like a man or woman who would be remembered as someone who persevered until they couldn’t persevere anymore, and who would be cherished as a tenacious fighter, not giving into the temptation to end everything abnormally. That’s how I want to go out, letting God finish the final sentences in the book of my life, and feeling all the sensations that may usher me off to a better place.

Individuals may think that someone’s consent to die allows them to do whatever they want with their bodies and their lives. Yet, as the Bible clearly affirms, our bodies are “temples,” and we are merely stewards to our bodies. Paraplegic Chris Hill figured that since his life was so miserable, he had the right to end his pain and suffering. I don’t think Chris Hill knows what a bad life really is. There are people in third-world countries who never get to live like Chris Hill did for his first 30 years of life. Hill recalled that he had, “good parents – a happy childhood,” and had traveled everywhere from, “Disneyland – the Bahamas – and the Pyramids.” What a life. Chris Hill had also, “watched the morning sun ignite Himalayan peaks in a blaze of incandescent glory, smoked hashish with a leper in an ancient Hindu temple, danced naked under the stars with the woman I love on a tropical beach – skied waist-deep powder snow in untracked Coloradoan glades, soared thermals to 8000 feet in a hang glider – and stood on the lip of a live volcano in Vanuatu.” What a wonderful life this man lived. He even received a first-rate education and had sexual relations with over 100 women. Not too bad. Now, Chris Hill said about his life in his suicide note, “I was terminally, unbearably unhappy with no way out – except death.” The first Chris Hill suffered a hang gliding accident and became the second Christ Hill, a man without a purpose in his opinion. When asked if life were a challenge, Chris responded in his suicide note saying, “What’s a challenge without some reward to make it worthwhile?” Those are some sad words. What Hill didn’t recognize is that he had the potential to live a life of purpose, love, and hope. He had a loving girlfriend named, “Lee-Ann,” and a core group of family and friends that cared very deeply for him. So why end his life? What gave him the right to change the lives of his family, friends, and “Lee-Ann,” forever? He didn’t have that right. He had the opportunity to live well, maybe not as largely and selfishly as he once had, but he could still be a catalyst of positive energy and attitude. What a shame that an educated, learned man like Chris Hill chose to kill himself. It was a tragedy that was preventable and sinful in the eyes of God. As a professor of family medicine and executive for Physicians For Compassionate Care Education Foundation, William L. Toffler articulated, “The solution to suffering never is to eliminate the sufferer.” Whether by their own hand or the hand and resources of another, it is wrong to end life, period.

So what about cases like Jimmy Wheeler, and 84 year old who attempted to kill he and his wife after she failed to recognize him anymore because of her advanced Alzheimer's disease? Wheeler turned on his stove and let gas flow throughout the house, hoping to suffocate painlessly on the substance while sleeping in the master bedroom with his wife. By the morning Wheeler had not succeeded in doing anything other than getting in some trouble with law enforcement and probably making his wife of 64 years fairly perturbed. I can’t even begin to contemplate why a man who has loved a woman for 64 plus years decides to kill himself, and her, just because she doesn’t know who he is anymore. Sure, that was a horribly unfortunate happening for Mr. Wheeler, but it didn’t justify death or warrant the killing of he and the love of his life. If Wheeler had actually loved her then wouldn’t he have tried to preserve her life for as long as possible and love her to the fullest of his abilities? I think that’s what a noble man and husband would have done. It is all just another illustration of why people should not end the lives of others, especially when their personal desires blind them to the wants and needs of those they most care about.

One of the most prestigious, well organized, and most prominent institutions in the history of the world, the Catholic Church, has a clear and reasonable stance regarding active and voluntary euthanasia. I am a Christian, and although I’m not Catholic, I have similar views to the Catholics on many accounts. Cardinal Franjo Seper’s, //Declaration on Euthanasia,// stated many admirable points of view including, “Human life is the basis of all goods, and is the necessary source and condition of every human activity and of all society.” That is very true. Human life has a preciousness and value that is above animals like dogs, that people euthanize routinely. Only with human life can the potential for good be present, and if practices like euthanasia end the possibility of human potential, they end the chance of good coming from the individual that dies. As Seper wisely reinforced, living is a, “fundamental right.” Life is priceless, and how is anyone worthy of taking away that fundamental right other than God? No one is. Seper upheld, “It is necessary to state firmly once more that nothing and no one can in any way permit the killing of an innocent human being, whether a fetus or an embryo, an infant or an adult, an old person, or one suffering from an incurable disease, or a person who is dying.” It was clear as crystal that the Catholics values support life even in undesirable situations like that of Daniel James or Chris Hill. Yes, life is not fair, and life can bring many challenges and miseries, but fighting through the adversity that may confront us is essential to living courageous, righteous, Godly lives. If people gave up on everything, as some give up on life, then no one would be a Christian, because the righteous road is narrow and winding. Sin is the short, wide road, and it is easy to fall into temptation and sin. All the better that we prove as Christians and as honorable people that no matter what the world throws at us, we will not adhere to earthly ways, and instead embrace a power and love that eclipses any of the tears of the world. Moreover, for centuries humans have lived and then died deaths that were as God planned. Suicides were still present, but the ability to maintain life through medical technologies even when without those technologies the person would have died otherwise, has changed the morality of letting people simply fade away. Doctors like Pieter Admiraal at the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland kill patients like Daniel James. Now, people like Walter Crnkovich have said things in accordance with Dr. Admiraal, “It’s (euthanasia) about people that are going to die, but don’t want to go through hell to do it.” Humanity is flawed with sin, and sometimes in life you just have to go through hell to come out on the other side a better person and a fighter. The dignity found in fighting till the last breath to live the beautiful life that God has provided is majestic and admirable. Cowards who kill themselves or help kill others who are simply “in pain,” are doing very little to benefit the world. Instead, they’re ending the potential that people, even sick and disabled people, have to live lives of purpose, success, and happiness. I strongly stand by my Christian virtues and values that support sustaining life even when an individual might not share the same opinion. As one of the 10 commandments that God delivered to Moses in the Ark of the Covenant so authoritatively stated, “Thou shalt not kill.” It doesn’t get much simpler than that. Thank you again for your time Mr. Smith. God bless.

Sincerely, Greg Oyan