Welcome back to The Lifeline. If you don’t already receive this in your inbox, you can sign up here. Now, on to some troubling news in America . . .
Pay No Attention to the Suicide Over Here; What Would It Ever Have to Do with Death?
Because I am a glutton for punishment, I spent some of Monday up in Albany, N.Y., as the senate held an extremely limited, frankly insulting debate about assisted suicide. When the New York Times reported on/advocated for it — not on the front page of the actual print edition until Wednesday — it prominently quoted one of the legalization bill’s sponsors in insisting the bill was not about ending life so much as it was about shortening death.
Words have no meaning. Senators who voted for the bill asserted both that excesses wouldn’t happen in the Empire State — just because, just believe — and that they were troubled by the prospects for misuse. Once we start sliding down the slope of green-lighting and encouraging death, prepare yourself. Yours may be the next death a doctor sees worthy of expedition. Or your father’s. Happy Father’s Day. Most people who avail themselves of assisted suicide feel like burdens. Can we send a different message to the vulnerable? To our loved ones?
The Hanson family continues to inspire. If you don’t know about J. J. and Kristen, please watch their testimonies. I know Kristen prays that Kathy Hochul vetoes the legislation.
‘Keeping Up with the Kevorkians’
That’s how New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan reacted to the news of the New York senate’s 35–27 passage of the bill on his radio show the next day:
“I’m shocked but not surprised. I’m shocked that any civilized nation can do this. The places that have done it are now rethinking it. Canada and the Scandinavian countries are saying, ‘Whoa, we didn’t mean this.’” Cardinal Dolan referred to it as “keeping up with the Kevorkians,” in reference to the late assisted-suicide advocate and practitioner Jack Kevorkian, a.k.a. “Dr. Death.”
Cardinal Dolan explained that there are compassionate alternatives to suicide.
“When I call the legislators about this, I say, ‘Would you come with me to visit Calvary Hospital?’ You see the happiest people. Surrounded by their loved ones. Prayer. Sacraments. Their pain is lessened in a very morally and medically licit way. They are ushered gracefully into the Lord’s embrace. And they don’t need anybody out there to give them an injection,” he said.
I’ve been not only to Calvary, but to Rosary Hill, run by the Hawthorne Dominicans here in New York. They are beacons of love — you feel close to heaven at both places — and one of Calvary’s founders, the late Dr. Michael Brescia, whom I had the honor of serving with on Cardinal Dolan’s Pro-Life Commission, would call each patient’s room at Calvary the “vestibule of heaven.” He seemed an angel, he was such a reliable defender of life.
Here’s a segment I had on EWTN about the mess in New York.
And here’s the photo of the day from Albany, a Franciscan friar protesting assisted suicide. I recognized him right away from what might be described as one of the most liberal parishes in New York (these labels are madness when talking about religion, but there we are). But as he said to me: I don’t know liberal or conservative, I know Catholic. And this bill is going to be dangerous to a lot of people, including people I work with every day who are struggling and depressed.
He happened to know a few senators, and he was fearless in reminding them who they are, how they were raised, and how a vote for the legislation betrays all of that. God bless him. And protect all who are harmed in myriad ways by this legislation.
Don’t Kill the Anorexia Patient
Leading English eating-disorder advocates warn Parliament that it is on the verge of making life more dangerous for people suffering from anorexia.
From the Times of London:
They said that, in its present form, Kim Leadbeater’s bill could “allow someone with an eating disorder to be offered lethal medications in their most despairing moments”.
While the legislation states that people cannot qualify for assisted dying on the basis of mental illness alone, campaigners fear that anorexia patients may meet the criteria of being “terminally ill” based on physical symptoms of malnutrition such as kidney and heart failure.
At least 60 patients with eating disorders have been able to access assisted dying services in countries where it is legal including Belgium, the Netherlands and the US, a review found. One third of these were aged in their teens and 20s. All were women.
This is real, people. This is happening.
And we’re okay with it, assisted suicide being just another medical protocol? And when hospitals need beds and families need solutions? You know where this is going.
Dad Slipped a Little Abortion into Her Drink
While The Nation celebrates “self-managed” abortion — they call helping fuel an increase in post-Dobbs abortion a “triumph” — in Texas, a boyfriend allegedly managed his girlfriend’s abortion by secretly slipping abortion drugs into her coffee.
One Substack devoted to abortion activism warns that charges against him should sound alarms about what pro-lifers want to do to women. Call me crazy. I’m concerned about the dead baby and his mother.
Those pills are deadly and life-changing for our culture in ways we have not acknowledged or processed.
A Philosopher and the Gift of Life
Writing in Wall Street Journal’s treasured “Houses of Worship” column, Carter Snead says his colleague philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, who died on May 21, makes us more human:
MacIntyre’s legacy is vast and important, but one part of it stands out to me: his influence on bioethics, even though he largely ignored the field as such.
Bioethicists often invoke the concept of “personhood” to define the ontological, moral and legal boundaries of humanity. “Persons” have human rights, deserve our moral concern and are entitled to protection from unjust harms. Not so for “nonpersons.” Many bioethicists define persons narrowly and include only those currently capable of active cognition, self-awareness and stable formulation of desires. This definition makes a particular kind of intellectual agency the threshold for membership in the moral community. It also excludes many—from young children to those suffering from cognitive impairments owing to disability or senescence—and thus sets them outside the scope of justice. . . .
We are most human when we are caring for one another, especially the weakest and most vulnerable. Within this vision, everyone counts, not merely those at the height of their powers. Everyone is part of the human family, including the profoundly and permanently disabled. MacIntyre reminds us that we all “exist on a scale of disability,” and it was always clear to me that he had a heart for children with special needs and their families.
In his intellect, wisdom, creativity, courage and breadth of learning, Alasdair MacIntyre was unsurpassed. By his life and his writing, he taught us how to be fully human.
God rest his soul.
Around National Review
The Supreme Court Shouldn’t Let New York Keep Forcing Nuns to Pay for Abortions
The Pill That Makes Abortion Federal
New York Suicide Bill: Governor Hochul, Don’t Do It. Honor the Memory of Pope Francis with a Veto
Other Things
Did the Trump administration kill the “the least controversial kind of pro-life, pro-woman, pro-baby work”? Leah Sargeant on the — now former — Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A new video on answering the call to walk with moms in need. Ask me to talk about the Walking with Moms in Need initiative, and I’ll be delighted to walk many rounds with whomever is interested!
Here’s a conversation on the effort. And another here.
Patrick Brown from the Ethics and Public Policy Center emails about this new website on the child tax credit.
If you are a woman who has had an abortion and is in need of a retreat, check out this opportunity on Long Island.
God Only Knows
God rest the soul of Brian Wilson. What a gift. Have you seen the amazing BBC tribute?
Happy Father’s Day — thanks be to God for good fathers, and father figures. I have on my door at National Review World Headquarters an email from a medical doctor who told me when William F. Buckley died that Bill had been the fatherly presence in his life — reliably in his family living room on Firing Line weekly. His mother encouraged his viewing. It’s amazing the ways God can use us if we let him.
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