Vital Signs
Mortal Sin
by Earl E. Appleby, Jr.
But I say to you, My friends: Do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more they
can do. But I will show you whom you shall be afraid of; be afraid of him whom after he has killed, has power to cast into
hell. Yes, I say to you, be afraid of him. (St. Luke 12:4-6)
"The act of killing oneself has been regarded in different times and places as a sin, a crime, a sickness,
a social propriety and--as nowadays appears to be the case in certain sectors of own society--a basic human right," observes
Midge Decter of the Institute on Religion and Public Life.
For the ecumenical humanist, suicide is the fundamental human right, the signature of human freedom. For the God-fearing
believer in the divine Creator, however, suicide is a mortal sin, depriving man of life in this world and life with Him in
the world to come. For both, the critical question remains "Whose life is it any way?"
Monitoring the President's Bioethics Commission, I witnessed the following dialogue:
"Gentlemen," a renowned scientist began, the testimony concluded, "something has been troubling me and I wonder if I
might share it with you."
"By all means," the chairman replied, as the panel picked up their ears.
The witness, a prominent player with the building blocks of life, continued: "We used to believe man was created by God,
in His own Image, so to speak. But Darwin came along with the first great revolution and proved we descended from the
apes. Still we held that man was capable of distinguishing right from wrong, of guilt, or, to use the old-fashioned word,
of sin.Then, thanks to Freud and the second revolution, we saw it was merely a matter of repressed libido. Well, we thought,
man differs from the other animals in his capacity to reason. Recent studies in comparative psychology and animal behavior,
however, indicate that while there may be a difference, it is one of degree, not of kind. Now we stand at the threshold of
a new man, not homo sapiens as we know him to be."
The commissioners, considering the question of joining human and nonhuman species in the mating rituals of the laboratory,
were attentive in a way seldom seen in Washington.
"I wake up sometimes in the middle of the night, a cold sweat drenching my face, and ask myself, 'What if man is in no
way different from the other animals?' As a scientist, I realize, of course, that this should not disturb me. But it does."
The silence resumed, no longer lethargic but expressive. And yet that unanswered question lies at the heart of so many
evils plaguing mankind today, not the least of which is suicide: "Whose life is it anyway?"
On nationwide television, a talk show host asked a pro-life panelist whether Betty Rollins' mother's suicide was "moral."
She declined to answer, expressing her preference to speak in terms of "the law."
But whose law? For where God's law is disdained, man's law shall not save us from ourselves.
"Would that the Almighty had not fixed His canon 'gainst self-slaughter," lamented Hamlet, a Danish prince who looked
to a King of a higher court. But He h.as. "Thou shalt not kill" forbids self-murder. "Life is a gift from God," Pope John
Paul II reminds us. "Man is not the Lord of it but a responsible administrator."
In 1978, Doris Porterwood foresaw a time when suicide prevention centers would provide "the means for an efficient suicide."
Six years later, Dr. Jerome Motto, a psychiatrist at the University of California, San Francisco, predicted that the "social
tidal wave" building in America made the establishment of clinics that facilitate suicide "inevitable." Supplying lethal means
to suicides, adds Jacques Choron, who worked in suicide prevention through the National Institute of Mental Health, "does
not exclude giving the candidates the opportunity to avail themselves of the services of a suicide prevention center before
making the final decision." Thus, suicide prevention centers join abortion clinics as places where "choice" is a code word
for killing.
In 1960, Reverend Joseph Fletcher, a pioneer of Planned Parenthood and the Euthanasia Society of America, proclaimed,
"Death control,like birth control, is a matter of humanity dignity." Three decades later, retired Michigan pathologist Dr.
Jack Kevorkian, echoing Fletcher's usurpation of the divine prerogatives, asked, "We have birth control, why not death control?"
In the back of Kevorkian's rusty 1968 VW van, Mrs. Janet Adkins, 54, allegedly exercised her "death control" by pushing
the panic button on his suicide machine delivering a deadly dose of potassium chloride, a favorite of the SS doctors of Hitler's
death camps.
"If its legal, let me do it," Kevorkian whined. "If its illegal, stop me," he dared." I have no fear of the law in this
society," the veteran euthanasia advocate bragged, with good cause. Judge Gerald Mac Nally of Oakland County District Court
dismissed all charges against Kevorkian, inspiring his lawyer to gush that those "who have no hope of a normal life" need
no longer be "condemned to a hellish life." But what of a hellish death? To the anti-lifer, a hellish death is one of suffering
like that of Christ on the cross. The "good death" is euthanasia and suicide, the end of all suffering. But is it?
Men who play God should be prepared to meet the God Who became Man, and warns "Be afraid of him whom after he has killed,
has power to cast into hell.Yes, I say to you, be afraid of him."
TFP Campus Update, 1991
