The story of our Christian and Catholic faith is, at its core, the story about life itself. The Book of Genesis speaks of a life prior to this world. That is the mystery of God who, as life, is the source of all. In language symbolic of all reality, creation is recounted, including the gift of life that surrounds us in the plants and the animal kingdom. 

 

But a special place is given to the life that is created in Adam and Eve, that is, to the human race. “God created mankind in His image; in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them.” (Gn 1:27). We have been made and given life that makes us the image and likeness of God Himself.

 

The story of human life takes on even greater importance with the Incarnation, the Christmas story. Through Mary, Jesus fully took on human nature. We say in the fourth Eucharistic prayer that Jesus, “shared our human nature in all things but sin.” As He shared our human nature with us, we also shared it with Him. And so, the dignity of human life was made even greater. And that is true for all, believers or not. 

 

It is the respect for the sacredness of human life that has been one of the great contributions of Christianity to the world. So often in history it has been the poor and the marginalized who have come to faith because they found in the Christian community a compassion and respect for their lives that they did not encounter elsewhere.

 

We find that one of the great threats of our modern culture is the loss of conviction and respect for the dignity of human life. Instead of being served by science and the economic systems of the world, ever more frequently individuals are seen to be servants to both. Pope Francis has been eloquent and insistent in resisting what he refers to as the “throw away culture.” And the greatest throw away is the human person.

 

As a result, we have seen efforts to protect the life of the unborn following last year’s Dobbs v. Jackson decision by the Supreme Court. But a number of states, such as our beloved Illinois, have used that moment to expand the right to terminate human life in the womb.

 

Now a new threat is rising in our state. That is the expansion of physician-assisted suicide. Under a beguiling language of compassion for the ill and the suffering, claim is being laid to the right not to simply to avoid the extraordinary means of prolonging life, but to seek out the administration of medicinal products and drugs which intend to deliberately take human life.

 

As Catholics, we hold that the sacredness of human life comes from its being a gift from our Creator. Only God has the right to give that gift and it is His right to decide the time and means by which it ends.

 

Even, however, without faith, reason itself raises objections to physician-assisted suicide. First, the medical practice has always been to serve the human person and the gift of life. To actively use medicine to end life distorts that purity of action and the culture of medicine in a dangerous manner.

 

Through physician-assisted suicide, society tells us our commitment to care for the aged and infirm can, and even should, be shorter in duration by hastening an early death “for” the one for whom we are providing final care. There is also the threat that the sick and dying will be pressured to accept assisted suicide because his or her dignity is diminished by pain or an inability to contribute to society.

 

We must also acknowledge that physician-assisted suicide creates financial incentives. There are already reports, in places where the practice is legal, that insurance policies at times refuse to pay for long term kinds of care but are willing to underwrite the administration of lethal medicines.

 

And finally, what are the threats to conscience that can accompany physician-assisted suicide? Will Catholics or other people of good will in the medical field be allowed by law to refuse to participate in such actions? Certainly the experience in other cases of respect for conscience and the freedom of religion would not be promising examples in this regard.

 

All human life is sacred. It creates a deep and loving bond between us who share it and for all of us with God. It must be respected at both the beginning and the end of the journey of that life. Physician-assisted suicide is a grave threat to that great gift.