Living Catholic with Father Don Wolf
Father Don Wolf, a priest of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, offers a Catholic perspective on the issues confronting each person today.
Living Catholic with Father Don Wolf
"Dying With Dignity = Death Without Obstacles" | March 9, 2025
Father Don Wolfe examines the troubling implications of Britain's recent legalization of assisted suicide, exploring how practices intended for "dignity in dying" inevitably expand beyond their original scope and transform healthcare from preservation of life to facilitation of death.
• Britain joining a growing list of countries legalizing assisted suicide for "legally competent terminally ill patients"
• Historical context including Robert Hugh Benson's prescient 1895 novel predicting euthanasia
• How the pursuit of "dying with dignity" transforms into "death without obstacles"
• Evidence from countries like Canada where medical assistance in dying rapidly expanded beyond terminal cases
• Connection between consumer culture's emphasis on choice and the normalization of chosen death
• Irony that Catholics, often criticized for focusing on the afterlife, now lead advocacy for earthly life's value
• Warning that doctors' roles may shift from preserving life to deciding which lives are worth treating
We must recognize that what we believe, celebrate, and value are truly matters of life and death, making our faith practice far more consequential than many realize.
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Father Don Wolf is a priest of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City. Living Catholic also broadcasts on Oklahoma Catholic Radio several times per week, with new episodes airing every Sunday.
This is Living Catholic with Father Don Wolfe. This show deals with living the Catholic faith in our time, discovering God's presence in our lives and finding hope in His Word. And now your host, father Don Wolfe.
Speaker 2:Welcome Oklahoma to Living Catholic. I'm Father Don Wolfe, pastor of Sacred Heart Parish and rector of the Shrine of Blessed Stanley Rother. Last fall the Parliament in Britain passed a bill legalizing assisted dying. It permits quote legally competent terminally ill patients unquote the right to ask for help in killing themselves. This legal outcome culminates a long process in which this rush to the grave has been promoted and proposed for years. Great Britain now joins a lengthening list of countries in which legalized suicide has become a treatment option for those who are ill. It is the case that in every place where such laws have been passed, the practice has not met the goals that promoted their passing. The ultimate outcome of the law this law is yet to be seen.
Speaker 2:Euthanasia has been a topic batted about in the Western world for a long time. I can't help but think of a scene in the novel the Lord of the World by Robert Hugh Benson, in which an aircraft has crashed. The novel was written in 1895 and proposes a world a hundred years in the future, that is, 1995. As the authorities arrive to the crash site there outside of London, they're accompanied by representatives of the medical community. So, going through the twisted metal and shattered glass remnants of the downed airliner, the nurses go to the injured and give them injections to kill them. In this novel of the future, the medical establishment kills the survivors. Since their recovery will be long and expensive, it's just not worth trying to save their lives. They're better off dead in the rough accounting of this tough new world. Britain has now crept up to the novel's plot, albeit about 30 years later than the offer on then the author proposed.
Speaker 2:It might be a bit of hyperbole to compare the decision of Parliament with Benson's fiction. No one is imagining that the National Health Service is going to be equipping their EMTs with poisons anytime soon. It's a step too far to imagine, and anyone wants to discourage anyone else for fighting to survive or valuing the beauty of life. This bill, as everyone insists, is actually proposed for the opposite reason. It's intended to promote the integrity and the beauty of life. Those who wrote it and those who passed it want everyone to live the fullest possible life and then to die only within the most serene bounds of dignity and peace. It's a fair complaint that seeing only destruction, especially wanton destruction, in this bill might be a step too far. Dignity in dying is its purpose. That's been the stated goal, energizing this project for generations.
Speaker 2:It was not hyperbole for Benson to include in his novel the practice of euthanasia, since it had been proposed even as far back as his time. True, it was much less acceptable as a political issue and the pharmacology of the time was irremediably primitive compared to today. But academics thought about it and proposed it, while politicians at least some politicians toyed with it as a possible issue for their people. They all wanted the prospect of dying with dignity, in the setting and within the circumstances of their choice. Dying, after all, is hard and it's tough. The people a hundred years ago certainly knew about its difficulties and indignities much more than we, so their proposal of dignity came from a breadth of experience we don't generally have.
Speaker 2:Growing old is a slow letting go of the fullest capacities we have as persons and slipping away into a slower, more diminished, a lesser version of ourselves. This process can be hurried by the onset of disease or conditions that heighten the weakness and the indignity to the extreme. Even when a person is prepared as fully and as thoroughly as possible, in the ultimate end approaches, the very end can be filled with painful crying out and gurgling struggle and frightful desperation. We use the euphemism to pass away. But we all know no one simply passes out of life, as if, going from one room to the next, a person holds on to his life, surrendering an inch at a time until there's no more to it.
Speaker 2:Dying isn't easy for anybody. Those who propose assisted suicide want to keep this frightening indignity from everybody. They propose that, as the end approaches, any person should be empowered to make a clear decision about his future and then decide to avoid the indecorousness of such struggles. Rather, each person should have the potential to reach for the poisons that will allow them a painless slide into the hallways of the beyond. Or, since most proponents of assisted suicide are professed non-believers, they can slide into the cold winter air of nothingness without gasp or gurgle or moan. They simply want to extend the choices involved in a good life to the final moments, rather than take them off the table of options.
Speaker 2:If you think about it, it's something like the image of the later Hugh Hefner lounging at the Playboy Mansion in his bathrobe. The image of the later Hugh Hefner lounging at the Playboy Mansion in his bathrobe. He pads about the place in his house shoes, greeting the guests, eyeing the women and modeling the painless lifestyle he was so famous for All the dark edges of living and the wrinkles of tough choices fall out into the smooth silk of his faultless wardrobe, in his wry smile. His faultless wardrobe and his wry smile. The beauty of life, lived for itself and prompted by the flurry of choices available to us today, comes to its highest point there. Open the pages, see the pictures and the possibilities open themselves to the restless and the disappointed. Assisted suicide is the playboy bunny centerfold of the last day. Perfect life, open in every way to the promise that life will be better If only we're thinking and acting the right way. That is the way, different than today. Hold that thought as you stare at the page and think of nothing else. There's not that much difference between the two. Most of us would never have thought the playboy ethos would have extended to the final breath. Turns out it does. Alas, it does only because it is a breath cut short by the poison offered In the great run-up to lively bliss prompted by Hugh Hefner.
Speaker 2:The whole idea was that there should be no barriers to what will make for contentment and ease. The old obstacles erected because of crazed misunderstandings about what is good and pleasurable, they can come down. And when they're down, then life can be enjoyed to the fullest, with little intrinsic barriers to how much or how long. If only we could push away the staid anxiety about what might be wrong, we'd find ourselves a lot happier. Certainly we'd be more fulfilled. That's what was promised in the world to come printed between the Playboy pages. If only we got what we wanted and the rest of the world would get on board. The promise of a whole new world would be there to grasp. It might be something as easy and as straightforward as I don't know picking an apple. If only the barriers holding us back could come down. A world where there were no barriers about self-destruction would fulfill the same promise when it comes to the final part of life.
Speaker 2:Since those who oppose these methods for ending life with some measure of choice and fulfillment are usually the same ones who oppose the pursuit of the pleasures of the flesh. They can be overcome in the same way. That is the appeal to a life that's fuller, that's simply more, will be enough to engage the imaginations of everyone. Who'd want to limit anyone who opted for avoiding pain and passing through the good days left of life. Ironically, the final part of the playboy philosophy turns out to be the emphasis on finality. Who would have imagined that the great denouement of the silk robe and the briar pipe and the pliant bunny would be the poisonous syringe? But it has proved to be so. The victory arch of the world marking our conquest of the morality of yesterday, is made of fear, hesitation and poison. What a monument.
Speaker 2:Most people weren't thinking of this when they promoted this bill for euthanasia. For them, dying in dignity is a good all of itself, and it seems obvious to everyone. Avoiding the nastiness of the last days is an obvious goal in their minds, something anyone would want to do. Indeed, the fear of the difficulties of dying are often at the forefront of their minds, and having such an out from such fear prompts much of the response. Those who are terminally ill are going to die soon. It's hoped that they could approach their last days without the worry that might be placed in situations that would make them embarrassed or uncomfortable or make those around them like that. This is what dignity in dying actually means for them. Nastiness in the last, tough days is avoided, and what could be wrong with that, especially for those who are at the verge of death.
Speaker 2:Anyway, it's supposed to work something like this those who have received a diagnosis of terminal illness can approach their doctor for help in terminating their lives. The doctor certifies that the condition is unrevivable and the patient is aware of the options for treatment and care and still chooses to end his or her life at a time of his or her option. Then, when the time is chosen, the one who's ill is entrusted with the means to end his life, and then he does so. Often this is described, hopefully, as a time when he or she is surrounded by friends and loved ones who see the sick one off with dispatch and compassion, and one hopes with appropriate sadness and loss. It's all very nice and easy, and rational and clean. That's the hope. Who wouldn't want it that way? There's said to be a tribe on an island in which everyone knows when they're going to die. That is, they come to a point in their lives in which they know now it's time for me to die. And when this realization hits them, they gather at the village together, announce the imminence of the death, give away their goods and then go to the end of the island to await the inevitable.
Speaker 2:Anthropologists who've studied them wonder at this aspect of their culture and puzzle at the message that the individuals receive. Is it a communal aspect of their culture, an aspect they're conditioned to from an early age, or is there a default button in the soul of every person, everywhere, that when the summoning moment comes, a voice is broadcast in the person's consciousness for each one to hear, except that in all other cultures, except this particular one, everybody's conditioned to ignore it, or that they've never been taught how to listen to it? Nobody really knows the answer, except in the pursuit of the choice of dying we're able to override the concerns about innate energies or interior voices and opt to bulldoze our way to the goal. We just take poison and have it over with. But what really happens in the regimen of assisted suicide is something different than the mild versions everyone has in mind. The experience of societies everywhere this has been legalized is not conformal to the expectations of the proponents. In fact, it only takes about a decade of legalized assistance in dying before all the dignity in dying evaporates and the hope engendered by the law's passage is blunted. Assisted suicide very quickly becomes assistance in dying, then becomes assistance in killing. It doesn't take long to move from killing oneself to killing the other selves in our lives. After all, once the barriers come down, the distance between dying and killing is only about as far as the width of a trigger finger.
Speaker 2:When the notorious Dr Kevorkian began to propose his solution to the problems of mortality, he advertised that he could help usher patients out of their terminal pain. Despite the opposition he faced a generation ago, he was able to implement his regimen of helping along the people who faced hopeless outcomes with his suicide machines. Eventually, he was able to accumulate quite a score of those who wanted his help in escorting them off this mortal coil. Except, in the long run, those who were helped most were, and most efficiently, were women who had no terminal diagnoses. The irony is piercing. He wanted to empower those who felt like they had no power over the last phase of life, and by the time his books were closed, the majority of those he had poisoned were those who had been the most excluded, the most ignored and the most disenfranchised during their lives women. They were also healthy, robust and were due to live a whole lot longer. It wasn't exactly a lesson in empowerment, except, of course, of him A male, a doctor, enfranchised, celebrated, revered and moneyed.
Speaker 2:Funny how things work out when revolution is in the air when Canada decided to opt for medical assistance in dying, known euphoniously as MAID. There were guardrails put in place to make sure that only doctor-approved patients terminally ill with no other hope could ask for the approved venom to assist themselves to the grave. Within the first decade, the barriers in place to protect patients from themselves and from doctors were removed. At this point, almost anyone who wants to request assistance in dying, including minors, are normally approved. We don't know how long it'll be before the majority of those who are killed by MADE are people who have no diagnosed disease, but it won't be too long.
Speaker 2:Those who longed for death with dignity have, of course, simply ended up with death, but it's what they longed for first of all anyway. Death with dignity turns out to become death without obstacles, and because this is the ultimate expression of the culture of death in our societies named so by Pope St John Paul II, in our society unmoored from the ethic of a God-centered purpose, we can't think of a reason not to kill ourselves. To appeal to dignity is simply a screen for our desire to exercise our will. If it sounded better, we would appeal to honor or bravery, or profits or glamour. They're all equally as empty and foolish as imagining that a chosen death is more dignified or honorable or brave or profitable or glamorous than an agonizing one. And because we can't think of why we shouldn't kill ourselves, we can't come up with a reason not to kill others. That might seem a bit of an overreach, since we don't generally see murder in the streets, but you know, we're still enduring the abortion regime that started 50 years ago and now has consumed more lives just in our country than all of the lives throughout the world that were consumed during the world wars of the 20th century, all of them killed by their mothers. Death with dignity quote-unquote doesn't seem to be the apt description of those who were sucked out of their mother's wombs and destroyed, because of course it's not about dignity at all but about will and power.
Speaker 2:Ironically, chosen death goes down in societies in which there is regular violence and ongoing warfare During war, and among the poorest, most lawless nations, the suicide rate is almost non-existent. Beverly Hills has a much higher suicide rate than Port-au-Prince, chicago a higher rate than Baghdad. Whether it's because there is a purpose to life that expresses itself in the scramble to survive day to day, or because there is a sense of national direction in communal purpose in those places? Nobody's quite sure, but we are all sure that in a society in which there is no sense of communal participation and no sense of national purpose, there are many who seem to be unable to come up with a reason to continue living, and so they opt to discontinue their habit of holding on to the reins of mortality and so then dissolve their lives into the great beyond.
Speaker 2:The most upsetting part of the legalization of assisted dying is that this option for killing becomes part of medical unquote quote, unquote care. That's where the novelization of killing survivors becomes real. Once medical assistance in dying becomes normalized, then the medical establishment begins to present suicide as an option for everyone who becomes sick. In Belgium, after much legal wrangling, the medical establishment finally okayed a request for a depressed woman to kill herself. Odd how women play such a central part in these dramas. I suppose it's because they play a central part in all medical dramas. So much for being disempowered, except for the part where they are the patients doing most of the dying. It's now part of the armamentarium of Belgian psychologists to note suicide as the solution to their patients' problems.
Speaker 2:Certainly it is a treatment method that will have a 100% success rate, and that's its lethal attractiveness. It's much cheaper to have patients kill themselves than to treat their illnesses. This is especially true when they are older and can no longer work or contribute to the GDP. In countries all over the Western world facing a crisis of health care expenses, it will become an irresistible temptation to pursue self-destruction as the easiest and most cost-effective process for addressing medical problems. Poison is inexpensive and funerals are cheap, comparatively speaking. After all, embalmers are much less expensive to train than surgeons.
Speaker 2:While this approach is dismissed as wildly off the mark by the proponents of assisted dying, it is the next step in the process. If no one can think of a reason for living, certainly there will be no one who can come up with a reason for not dying. And again, it's only a millimeter distance to be unable to keep from coming up with a reason for not killing. So doctors will migrate from those who preserve life to those who decide which lives are worth treating and which are the most dispensable. Healthcare will continue to use its bright names and good titles, but it will begin to direct itself to the focus on effectual killing rather than on compassionate caring. That's what we've seen with abortion, ripping a child to pieces in its mother's womb, to flush it out into a stainless steel sink is now still called reproductive care. How long before slipping venom into a patient's IV is called directed life therapy? My guess is not long. And if the previous example is any guide, everyone will carry on as if there's nothing to notice. In fact, noticing will be regarded as a measure of opposition or regress to all treatments and therapies or care. After all, the law is a teacher. Making a law allowing killing teaches us that killing is of no impact, and thus it will be so.
Speaker 2:Perhaps the greatest irony of all is that those of us who believe in God believe that God has entrusted our lives to us as a divine gift, since the very act of living is suffused with God's divine plan. Interrupting the course of living, for whatever reason, is of eternal significance. Living, after all matters, and for the better part of the 20th century, christian belief was criticized for focusing too much on the hereafter, excusing the oppression of the marketplace and the exploitation of people, because these offenses were only here and, of course, were of no concern for those who were on their way to heaven. That was the popular propaganda from those who wanted the barriers between peoples and capital, and ownership and obligation and participation to come down. Now, however, it seems to be only those who have the capacity to focus on the promises of heaven who have the slightest care for the value of those who are here.
Speaker 2:We can draw an ironic analog with the contrast of the church's teaching on sex. It took the world's most famous celibate, the Pope, to call our society's attention to the irreplaceable beauties of marriage, babies and family life. So also it takes the world's most notable champion of heaven, the Pope, again to call society's attention to the irredeemable importance of living life long and full. But to be truthful, the church has been around long enough to see what happens when life is emptied of its value and evacuated of its importance. Even if the conversation is about a brief shortening of life for all measure of good reasons, the journey from amelioration to murder is a short one.
Speaker 2:The truth of the matter is darker than we want to admit. We are a fallen people living in a fallen world. Putting the power of life and death into our hands, even into the hands of the most highly trained and compassionately formed people in the world, is to end up with twisted and dark results After a while. No matter who decides, we end up opting for death. Not only that, we're all drawn to the longing for transcendence in our lives. Every lover longs for the invisible but real connection to the beloved. Each person knows how powerful beauty is. Even the basest child knows there is a truth to be told and a lie to be avoided. We gravitate to what is beyond us and what is beyond our limits. If we have been convinced that God is no more, that religion is a fraud and that life is a mirage and meaning is a carnival, then we'll find the longing we have with the one transcendent experience no one can deny or belittle, which is death. It is truly beyond us. All we have to do is step into it at our front door. When we deny the hunger for the beyond that lies in our hearts, we grab onto it at our bedside. That's why what we believe, what we celebrate and what we value are all a matter of life and death. That makes what we do on Sunday something a whole lot more important than we normally think. It is a matter of life and death today. Back in just a moment. Welcome back to our final segment Faith in Verse.
Speaker 2:We have a poem today called oh the Weather. The weather turns cold, as if at the flip of a switch. It was as spring this morning early, but there was a glitch as the clouds scudded in to darken the clearing sky. The winds rose and the matted leaves began again to fly. Temps began to fall and winter was again upon us beyond any hope of warming weather we could trust. But we have to admit these varying measures are not much different than what we most treasure. Our hearts wear tempests blowing hard and strong. Cold fronts ebb and flow across them too wide and long, so that spring becomes winter again, plunging us into the surprise of our lives. Capricious and varying, we live such, getting by best we can, trusting God's measure. Over and over again, our hope turns to spring, on promises graced, steady as the sure season arriving without haste. That's oh the Weather. I hope you can come back and join us in the weeks to come.
Speaker 1:To see you then. Living Catholic is a production of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City for Oklahoma Catholic Radio. To learn more, visit okcrorg.