Americans have bought heavily into what our Holy Father calls the "culture of death." This is evidenced by a recent Gallup poll of 1,001 adults where 56% would vote against a ban on abortion except to save the life of the mother and 68% would vote to allow doctors to help terminally ill patients commit suicide. Only 29% would vote against assisted suicide for the terminally ill. Further evidence is the experience of Dr. Jack Kevorkian who has openly assisted dozens of persons to commit suicide and has as yet been convicted by no jury in flouting many centuries of common law. Now that we kill more than a million preborn children each year we have moved from Baby Doe to Granny Doe. The Church stands firmly in opposition to assisted suicide. Let us look at some of the reasons.

One of the basic human goods or tendencies is the preservation of human life. The natural law which obliges us to promote good and avoid evil orders us to do things that protect human life and avoid those acts that would diminish or destroy it. Thus it forbids murder as well as suicide. Human life is a good that must be respected. It lies outside the jurisdiction of other humans beings who would eliminate it unjustly. The natural law binds all human beings of all times and conditions. Assisted suicide is complicity in the sin of another.

From the perspective of faith human life is sacred because it is a reflection of the image of God and because it arises from God’s special creative act. "In his hand is the soul of every living thing, and the life breath of all mankind" (Job 12:10). "The Lord puts to death and gives life" (I Sam. 2:6). "It is I who bring death and life" (Deut. 32:39). Respect for the lives of innocent human beings has an absolute value. "The innocent and the just you shall not put to death" (Exod. 23:6). The first homicide elicited from God a declaration of the wickedness of taking human life. "Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the soil" (Gen. 4:10). Human life reflects the inviolability of God himself. "If anyone sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has man been made" (Gen. 9:6). Only Satan delights in death (Wis. 2:4) and is a murderer from the beginning (Jn. 8:44).

Apart from the immorality of assisted suicide it is bad public policy. It will certainly, not probably, lead to killing others besides the terminally ill. How can I be so sure? Look at history. In pre-holocaust Germany euthanasia was introduced to relieve the suffering of the mentally retarded, as "a compassionate thing to do." Then it became popular for more utilitarian reasons, for use against schizophrenics, then against the handicapped. From there it was an easy slide to more systematic killing and the erection of killing factories in places like Buchenwald and Auschwitz.

If you object that the mentally deranged and amoral Nazis should not be taken as a norm, look to the Netherlands, noted for humaneness, and be warned. For slightly more than a decade Holland has had legalized assisted suicide. Each year up to 20,000 people are killed by doctors, 11% of all deaths in the country. More than half of these are done without the patient’s consent. The comatose are regarded as having the same "right to die" as those able to request death. Victims include not only the terminally ill but newborns with disabilities, children with life threatening diseases, and psychiatric patients. Four months after decriminalization of euthanasia for adults the Dutch Pediatric Association sought protection for doctors who kill handicapped children because "sometimes care is helping a baby to die."

People are willing to kill when it is against the law. What will happen when it becomes legal and even "humane"? If suicide is an acceptable option why should society spend scarce medical resources or funds on those who lack the decency not to burden their fellow citizens by having themselves eliminated? Permission to kill oneself will soon give way to encouragement to end life. Once the problem of the terminally ill is settled by legalized assisted suicide, the next step will be to help the elderly and the handicapped to die. It will change the relationship of doctor and patient. Doctors are trusted as healers, but if they also become hired terminators they will be distrusted by patients. Those who are comatose because they were victims of accidents or crimes may become victims again if they encounter a doctor who kills them "for their own good." Assisted suicide contradicts the experience of the Nuremberg trials, which state that persons may not be killed for such reasons as the state of their health. A "right to die" is a contradiction in terms because without life there are no rights.

The U.S. Supreme Court is going to consider a case involving assisted suicide this session. I will make three predictions about their decision. Prediction #1: The court will find in the Constitution a heretofore unknown right to commit suicide. If the court finds grounds in the constitution for killing innocent life in the womb which can anticipate excellent health, why should it withhold permission to terminally ill adults who want to kill themselves? Prediction #2: When that occurs there will be deaths at the hands of physicians not just in rare cases but in thousands and tens of thousands of cases. Initially those put to death will ask for it, but quite soon death will be "mercifully" administered to those who do not ask. The experience of Holland where physician-assisted deaths comes to 11% of all deaths makes this prediction very likely. That will put us at the pre-holocaust stage of Nazi Germany. Prediction #3: Once death at the decision of others is fully established in our society we will experience an American version of the holocaust. Whenever we administer death immorally on the pretext of doing good we undermine our own right to life. Indeed we are in holocaust situation already. Hitler killed only about 10 million people whereas we have already killed 30 million unborn children with no likelihood of stopping. If I am wrong in my predictions, I will joyfully wear egg on my face. I doubt that my predictions will be wrong. You do not need psychic powers to know what will thrive in your future garden. All you need to know is the kind of seeds being planted now. In our social garden we are planting the seeds of death.