Helping the terminally ill end their lives is gaining traction and the voice of the Church condemning the practice is woefully mute.
Banned everywhere but Oregon until 2008, it is now legal in five states: California, Colorado, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington. The District of Columbia has also legalized the practice.
Its advocates, who shun the term “assisted suicide,” believe that as baby boomers watch frail parents suffer, support for what they call the “aid in dying” movement will grow further.
In January, the New Mexico Supreme Court authorized doctors to provide lethal prescriptions and declared a constitutional right for “a competent, terminally ill patient to choose aid in dying.”
This Spring, advocates are strongly promoting “death with dignity” bills in Connecticut and other states.
Public support for assisted dying has grown in the past half century.
There is a quiet, constant demand all over the country for a right to die on one’s own terms, said Barbara Coombs Lee, President of Compassion & Choices, and that demand is likely to grow, she said, as the baby boomers age.
The reality is that euthanasia is not a future problem. It is a present problem. It is happening now and becoming increasingly accepted.
The Church is asleep at the switch, not realizing that growing trend is toward the massive elimination of the elderly and "incompetent," and anyone else considered to be a burden to society.
All Christians and people of good will need to oppose such moral nonsense. And the time to oppose it is now, before it becomes solidified in law in more and more States.
Our times demand courage and wisdom. May these not be lacking to any one of us!
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