Homily for the 46thAnnual March for Life
The 46th Annual March for Life is taking place today, Friday 18 January, in Washington, D.C. The march began as a response to the Supreme Court's disastrous Roe vs. Wade decision that signed the death warrants for millions of children in the womb. It was the first push that sent American Society down the slippery slope of killing the imperfect, the undesirable, the unwanted, the unplanned, and now the inconveniently sick and elderly.
What was euphemistically called "physician-assisted suicide" became, through the manipulation of language, "physician-guided death." It is now being called "physician prescribed death." Exactly when did old age, terminal illness, or imperfection become a capital offense demanding a prescription to die? I did not attend med school--Temple Med class of 1975--and complete seven years worth of residency training to be able to write the prescription: "Kill grandma or grandpa as desired. Call me for instructions."
In the spring of 1978 I spent six weeks as a visiting house officer with Dr. Cicely Saunders at St. Christopher's Hospice in London. St. Christopher's was not the first hospice in England. Dr. Saunders, however, brought the hospice concept to international notice and awareness. And it spread widely.
She was a fierce opponent of what was then called euthanasia. She said in an interview: "Impending death is no excuse for ending life. Rather than rushing to kill the dying in the name of ending their suffering, we should focus on practical measures for alleviating their pain and spiritual means to make their final moments worth living." She was quite the contrast to Lord High Executioner Jack Kevorkian.
Kevorkian, died at age 87 . . . . in a hospital bed . . . of natural causes. Kind of ironic dontcha think? He was a pathologist. Pathologists don't usually see patients with body temperatures higher than that of the ambient air. Indeed, they alone, among physicians, do not do an internship with living patients and their families.
Kevorkian's initial seven or eight patients were women who are probably more likely to choose to be "offed" so as not to burden anyone. There was a photo of one of those patients, perhaps the first, waving fondly to her family as she entered the death chamber. She was in an early stage of Alzheimer's. The photo was disturbing. It raised questions. Was this her free choice? Were her thought processes already skewed by the disease? Did the family play a role in manipulating her decision? Did anyone try to discourage her? Was she depressed?
In his encyclical Evangelium VitaeSt. John Paul II, Pope, condemned "therapeutic interventions--which accept life only under certain conditions and reject it when it is affected by any limitation, handicap, or illness."
It pains me to admit that physicians and medical schools are a significant part of the problem. In ancient time physicians who pronounced and lived according to the Oath of Hippocrates were called "Hippocratic Physicians." It was not a universally administered oath at the time. Not all physicians took it nor abided by its precepts. Today, reciting the so-called Hippocratic oath is, at best, a trite medical school graduation photo-op. It is unrecognizable when compared to the original. Some of the bowdlerized oaths seem to focus mostly on never violating HIPPA or not doing anything illegal, a definition that is at best elastic these days.
The promises live ethically and morally have been deleted. Thus, new physicians no longer agree: "Into whatsoever houses I enter, . . .I will abstain from all intentional wrong-doing and harm, especially from abusing the bodies of man or woman,"
Today's young doctors do not say: "I will use treatment to help the sick . . . but never with a view to injury and wrong-doing. Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course . . . . Similarly I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause abortion. But I will keep pure and holy both my life and my art."
The Hippocratic oath was composed between the third and fifth centuries B.C. thus the current whining about a judge who belongs to the Knights of Columbus and the extreme teachings of the Catholic Church is invalid in this argument. The sanctity of life was very much respected by pagans.
John Paul pointed out in his 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae: "A danger today is the tendency to disguise certain crimes against life in its early or final stages by using innocuous medical terms which distract attention from the fact that what is involved is the right to life of an actual human person."
Iceland has almost completely eliminated Down's Syndrome through selective abortion following intrauterine testing. Genocide would be the appropriate term. Physician Prescribed Death is a another example of semantic manipulation. Killing the sick is a much more accurate term. Abortion is a more accurate description than the pastel tinted euphemism "Women's Health."
Unfortunately, there will be a 47th, 48th, and even 55th Annual March for Life. The need for such witness may be even more desperate over the coming years.
We pray for those who are marching, the legions of young people treading the streets of the District of Columbia at great cost and inconvenience to themselves.
We pray for the victims of these unnatural deaths and the hidden collateral damage to the families that participated in such abominable procedures. The cost to them is much higher than anyone realizes.
Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine,
et lux perpetua luceat eis.
Requiescant in pace.
"Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord,
and let perpetual light shine upon them.
May they rest in peace."
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