FR John Flynn’s story, Euthanasia extends its scope, (CL October 12) reminded me of a blatantly pro suicide-euthanasia story on the ABC’s Drum website.
I then angrily wrote this letter but for some reason, maybe dissipated anger, didn’t send it on.
Sadly for us all there is more than just the bending of some rules on euthanasia as Fr Flynn reports.
In today’s post-Christian, modern secular era, many will argue that there is nothing special about human life.
It is not unreasonable therefore to conclude that suicide is like taking an old clapped out machine to the dump or the old or sick cat or dog to the vet to put down.
That is the ugly reality that everybody is reluctant to acknowledge.
To ease the discomfort this ugliness is invariably disguised by cotton wool packaging of justice, compassion and mercy arguments.
However there is also one contradiction in this suicide debate that again everybody studiously avoids.
If suicide, or as many call it “ dignity in death”, is a good thing, why is it a bad thing when a suffering teenager or even a child, in similar circumstances, suicides?
In such cases the media are copiously filled with numerous reports on what a terrible tragedy teenage and younger suicide is to family and friends and how one should do everything possible to prevent such disasters sometimes even to the extent of suppressing reporting to avoid copy cat suicide.
This is not unreasonable if one accepts that morality is not absolute, as for a believing Christian, but that the moral worth of any deed depends on who is on the receiving end. Good for an adult terminal cancer sufferer but bad for a teenager or child.
This whole silly and ugly debate arises because there is now no societal agreement on values and in particular on what is human life, and what is morality.
Brace for more chaos and, for a believing Christian, more outrage and sacrilege.
George Szylkarski
Graceville, Qld
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