BUILDING A CULTURE OF LIFE

By Mary Deutscher

In my journeys across the Internet, I have encountered many online polls that try to provide a clear summary of their readers’ opinions on euthanasia. These polls generally give me the option of stating I believe either: a) Everyone deserves the right to make his or her own decisions; or b) Life is sacred.

At this point I usually stare at the screen until my eyes water, hoping that I can somehow will a third option into existence. Why do I have to choose to defend either free will or human life? If these are both gifts given to us by God, why can’t I uphold them both?

I could just shake my head at these polls and claim that they must have been designed by some poor misinformed individual, if not for the fact that this tension between choice and sanctity of life crops up everywhere. In the first hour of parliamentary debate over MP Francine Lalonde’s Private Member’s Bill C-384, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (Right to die with dignity), MPs were presented with a very well-reasoned document against euthanasia signed by five Quebec doctors.

When asked to comment on the arguments, which were not religious in nature, Lalonde stated: “These five doctors had the right to write this letter, but I know that two of them were deacons and another was a member of Opus Dei.”

The underlying message behind this statement is clear: If you believe in the sanctity of life, you must not have any respect for freedom of choice or liberal society in general, and therefore your opinion has no weight in public debate.

Lalonde and many like her have failed to realize that Canadian citizens have never been free to do whatever they want regardless of the consequences. Our legal system was built to balance freedom of choice with other values.

For example, we have developed a law in Canada that requires everyone to follow the speed limit. The government takes a paternalistic stance on this issue because it knows that not all Canadians have the time to decide how fast to go each time they start driving on a new road. The goal of this law, and others like it, is to encourage citizens to make positive choices for their own benefit, for the benefit of those around them, and for the benefit of the community as a whole.

A similar situation exists with the law against euthanasia. The law exists not because we are afraid of people making choices that go against our religious morality, but because we want to help people to make life-affirming choices. If someone is in pain, we want to help him or her find a way to relieve that pain and continue to enjoy his or her life. If someone is lonely, we want to help him or her find a way to become connected to the community.

This law is not designed to control people in the name of some higher principle. The law against euthanasia is in place because it benefits individuals and their communities by encouraging them to find positive solutions to their problems and ensuring that vulnerable persons will not be coerced into a premature death.

The same argument applies to abortion. Although the political climate surrounding this issue makes it considerably more difficult to discuss in a legal context, there is still much that we can do to relieve abortion of its sanctity of life versus freedom of choice polarization.

Many women have been misguided by the assumption that because it is legal, abortion is safe and consequence free. A woman who is given all the information available on abortion as well as positive, realistic alternatives is not likely to choose to submit to such a devastating procedure. We are in a position to show women that they do not need to resort to abortion.

We live in a world that insists on labeling everyone as either “pro-life” or “pro-choice.” These labels do not do justice to either position and add an extra layer of confusion to an already complicated debate.

I wish I could create a third option on those Internet polls that would give me the chance to state: “Everyone deserves the support necessary to make life-affirming choices. I am against the legalization of euthanasia because it would allow our society to abandon people when they are most in need of our help to find other alternatives.”

Until that option becomes available I will continue to identify myself as pro-life, knowing full well that I am also pro-choice.

Deutscher has recently returned to Saskatchewan from Ottawa after completing a master of arts in public ethics at St. Paul University and working with the Catholic Organization for Life and Family.