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What Religious Liberty?
The Incredible Ever-Expanding Dead End
Anti-Cure, Anti-Life
Whose Values in Education?
Toppling Dominos
Anti-Christians don't have to be Hypocrites but Many Volunteer
Intolerant Tolerance
The Emperor's Clothes or a Cheap Tuxedo
The Myth of Hitler's Pope, Part I
The Myth of Hitler's Pope, Part II
Embryonic Stem Cell Research Again
The Madness of Secularism
"Don't Impose Your Religion on Me"
Dictatorship of Relativism
Two Babies at Christmas
Living Will or Death Warrant?
Court Ordered Slow Motion Torture-Death Sentence
Men in Black
A Lot of Hot Air
The Culture War Battles
"Stay with us, Lord"
Secular-to-English Dictionary
Moral Guidance for Catholics in this Election
Christians Losing America
Stem Cell Wars
Catholic Pro-Abortion Politicians and Communion
Useful Idiots
Who Killed Jesus?
A Primer on Gay Marriage
Whose Side are You on?
Vouchers Revisited
Real and Fake Cloning Bans
Broken Compasses
No Room in the Inn
Killing Fields Revisited
Gay but not Merry
Adam and Steve?
The Battle for the Court
Victimless Crimes
More Salt, Please
The Next Big Fight
When Religion Becomes Evil
Virginity Making a Comeback?
You've Come a Long Way, Baby
The Incarnational Approach
The Many Meanings of ACLU
Things Your Media Never Told You
A Nasty Little Secret
Two Points of View on the Birth of Jesus
You Gotta Kill Them.  How Else Are They Going To Learn?
Perplexing Christmas Questions
How Do You See Christ Today?
Now that there is Another Ewe, will there be Another You?
What is Conscience Anyhow?
Divorce of Love and Life
What Counts as a Mass?
What is a Covenant?
I Wish I had Your Faith
Are there Too Many Decrees of Nullity?
Dutch Treats
Ecumenism
Going from Baby Doe to Granny Doe
Comments of Evangelium Vitae
The Exception Corrupts the Rule
Good Morality or Good Medicine
Generation-X'ers Smart in Every Way But One
A Matter of Good Breeding
Herod and Pontius Pilate at the Polls
Hitler's Pope or Righteous Gentile?
The Unknown God
What exactly is wrong with homosexuality?
Ideology Trumps Science, Reality, and Common Sense
What Exactly is an Indulgence?
Infallibility and Error in the Church
Pilate Asked, "What is Truth?"
The Truth about Families
New Killing Fields
Choice of Language and Language of Choice
A Lexicon for Our Day
Why are there so many bodies?
Marijuana, Medicine or Menace?
Medical Research and Ethics
Meditation
"You Taught me well, Mommie dearest"
Moral Fallout
Neutral on the Wrong Side
"These are the Nineties After All"
Many are Wed but Few are Married
"...Prepare him for additional obligations"
A Useful Lie
A Partridge in a Pear Tree
Religious Persecution in the U.S.?
What Makes a Person a Person?
The Point of a Point of View
Politically Correct, Morally Depraved
Population Controllers out of Control
Practical Dreamers
Social Progress through Immorality
Shall we Do Evil for Goodness Sake?
Reason and Faith
Resurrection Glory
Same Sex Marriages?
Pearl of Great Price
"I used to be schizophrenic, but we're all right now"
Sexual Morality Irrelevant in Judging Public Officials?
Undesirable Side Effects
Some News is Good News
SOSSLQ's, not POSSLQ's
Spoils of Splits
Why Attend Mass Every Sunday?
Is it All Right to Pull the Plug?
An Appeal for Intolerance
Topics Catechetical
A Voting Catechism
A Moral Guide to Voting
Vouchers: Has Their Time Come?
What Child is This?
What did they die of?
You are the Man
You may be a liberal if...
Get Rid of that Worthless Relative
Planned Un-Parenthood
Weighing Pro-Life Issues Prior to Voting

by Monsignor James C. Brunner

Faith Points

In a nursing facility a lady was speaking to her aged mother:

"There is something that I have been wanting to discuss with you for some time, Mommie. I don’t know how much of this you comprehend. You haven’t recognized your own daughter for a long time now and your lucid moments are becoming fewer. I need to ventilate my feelings on a certain problem and would like to feel that you approve what I propose to do.

"You told me that it is better that a woman not bring into the world a child who may be deformed, suffering from severe handicaps, mentally handicapped or whose defects lead us to anticipate only a poor quality of life. Abortion in this case is an act of kindness, you told me. Some fetuses are only so much tissue or at best a collection of organs. Such a child makes tremendous and disproportionate demands on a woman. So it’s all right to consider that sort of fetus as expendable.

"And even if the fetus were healthy you said that no one can force a woman to be a mother if she does not want to be. The one who has the burden of bearing a child should be the one to decide whether the child will be allowed to live. You told me that a woman is not obliged to make large sacrifices of health, other interests and concerns, hopes for a career, and other commitments in order to keep a fetus alive. A mother has the right to deny protection to an unwelcome fetus. A fetus violates the rights of women to be free of burdens they do not wish to undertake. I believe all that you told me, but it is still hard for me to take a drastic step like snuffing out a human life. I guess I need assurance that that would be a decent thing to do. It is not easy to discard your own flesh and blood even though in some circumstances it seems the only sensible thing to do. After all, why should a woman have to re-order her life in order to accommodate an involuntary, time-consuming commitment that goes on for years?

"I have come to a crossroads in my life and I can’t get guidance from you and Dad since he is gone and you cannot find your way to your room. I remember a great many things the two of you taught me. I even remember the awful jokes that Dad would tell me because he derived a wicked glee in shocking me. One especially comes to mind right now. Do you remember his story about the man and his dog who were shipwrecked on a deserted island? Of course not! You can’t remember your name. Well, after a while the man got so hungry that he killed his dog and roasted him. After he had finished eating him the man remarked, ‘Gosh, I wish Spot were here. He would enjoy these bones.’

"Well, Mommie, my problem is not that I am pregnant, but I feel the same pressure as one who is. I am not expecting a deformed baby, but I have a mother who is suffering from mental handicaps that will only get worse. Not much prospect for a good quality of life here. A fetus may be only so much tissue but you have become no more than an undirected collection of organs, pretty much like a ship without a pilot. I am not pregnant and do not anticipate a troublesome child making demands on me, but you are making tremendous emotional and financial demands on me. A woman can choose not to be a mother, but I cannot choose to avoid a mother who is in a vegetative state, someone who only with great generosity can still be called a functioning person. I have to make large sacrifices in my interests and concerns and your condition is interfering with my career. Because I am the only one left to care for you I have had to turn down an overseas assignment that involved a promotion and substantial pay raise. I have to re-order my life and priorities to care for someone who will never improve, but only get worse. At least in a pregnancy the woman by her act contributed to the presence of the fetus within her. In your case I have not done anything to have this involuntary commitment thrust upon me.

"The more I think about it, the clearer it becomes that I have exactly the same grounds for terminating your life that a pregnant woman has for aborting her fetus. The justification for terminating the lives of both is identical. If we can end the subhuman life of the unborn why not the subhuman life of the elderly? Don’t you see, Mommie, helping the terminally ill to die is just like abortion, except that it is abortion of the elderly? Abortion should be allowed at the other end of life also if the reasons are the same.

"Your generation aborted one third of all persons conceived. Now their brothers and sisters are giving serious thought to aborting your generation. If your generation had not done pioneering work in legalizing abortion it would not be possible now to think of legalizing mercy killing. You taught us that human life is not valuable in itself, but only if it functions at a certain level and is not a threat to the well-being of existing life. Since you are not functioning at an adequate level and are a threat to my well-being you fall into the same category as a fetus. Soon physicians who take money for killing the undesirable unborn may be taking it for killing the useless elderly.

"For the moment, Mommie, there are laws that prevent me from hastening your death although the Supreme Court is considering making assisted-suicide legal and I may soon have my chance. As the person who must interpret what your wishes about continuing your life would have been if you were competent to express them, I will be guided by what you taught me about the conditions under which it is permissible to terminate human life. From what you told me I have to conclude that you would not have wanted your life to continue in your present circumstances.

"You often complained that our generation rejected the values of your generation. You taught me very well, Mommie dearest. I not only accept your value system on life but also intend to apply it to new areas. It should make you feel proud that we have learned so well the lessons you imparted. Unfortunately because of your teaching, like Spot, you may not be around to relish the moment."