Right to Life or Duty to Die

Al Mohler contributed to the duty to die discussion back in August in his article entitled, A Threat to the Disabled...and to Us All.

"Disability rights activists understand that this same logic threatens persons with disabilities. When does the argument for a right to die morph into an argument for a duty to die? The question is not merely a matter of intellectual interest. It is a question of life or death."

To read the article in its entirety, click here:
http://www.albertmohler.com/blog_read.php?id=983

Here are some other articles of "interest"
http://www.rawfoodinfo.com/articles/art_medicalfascism.html

This is another Mohler article reporting that Down Syndrome births are down 90% due to abortion: http://www.albertmohler.com/blog_read.php?id=943

Here is a terrifying quote from the article linked above.

"We will increasingly see the use of embryo screening for severe cosmetic conditions," he said, according to The Telegraph, a British online newspaper.The clinic director said he would be willing to try for permission to test for any genetic factor that would produce severe distress in a family.When asked about hair color, Grudzinskas said, "If there is a cosmetic aspect to an individual case I would assess it on its merits. [Hair color] can be a cause of bullying which can lead to suicide. With the agreement of the HFEA, I would do it."

Murder is Art?

My buddy JT had this posted on his blog on February 17:

Michael Medved--a self-described "skeptic regarding one of the most absurdly over-praised movies in recent Hollywood history" [Clint Eastwood's "Million Dollar Baby"]--explains why he's been so critical of this movie with its sympathetic portrayal of assisted suicide and with its implicit message that premediated murder can be the ultimate gift of love, especially if the alternative means life in a wheelchair or a hospital bed.

My post title was inspired by this paragraph in Medved's article:

"More recently, some of the film's most conspicuous promoters have taken another tack entirely, insisting that the movie never tilts one way or another on the death-with-dignity debate, even when it portrays premeditated murder as the ultimate gift of love. "Michael Moore and Mel Gibson aside," wrote Ms. Dowd, "the purpose of art is not always to send messages. More often, it's just to tell a story, move people and provoke ideas. Mr. Eastwood's critics don't even understand what art is."

Rest in Peace?

“The focus of this legislation is to give those who suffer, the right to choose a death with dignity, to bring to an end the torture many endure on their death-bed... Society has, through the laws in place today, made an assessment for all of us - that our quality of life, no matter how wretched, miserable and painful is never so bad that any of us will be allowed to put an end to it. I am not prepared to allow society to make that decision for me or those I love."

This quote was taken from an

List o' Links

Chuck Coleson's article (see previous post) ended with a fantastic list of links to topics related to his article. For those of you who may not have linked to his full article, here is that list of links.

Frederica Mathewes-Green, “R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Million Dollar Baby goes too far and not far enough ,” National Review Online, 2 February 2005 .

Sanda Allyson, “Million Dollar Baby Cost Too High,” Joni and Friends.

“The backlash over ‘Million Dollar Baby’ ,” CNN, 7 February 2005 .

Jeffrey Overstreet, “ Review of Million Dollar Baby,” Christianity Today, 7 January 2005 .

Learn more about the show House.

S. T. Karnick, “ Must-Believe TV: Christianity Gets a Fair Shake ,” National Review Online, 21 December 2004 .

Tom Shales, “ ‘House’: Watching Is the Best Medicine ,” WashingtonPost, 16 November 2004 , C01.

Roberto Rivera, “ Lean on Me: Dignity and Dependency ,” BreakPoint Online, 28 January 2004 .

Rita L. Marker and Wesley J. Smith, “Words, Words, Words: Terms used in the euthanasia debate—their use and abuse ,” International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide.

Arthur J. Dyck, Life’s Worth: The Case against Assisted Suicide (Eerdmans, 2002).

Richard John Neuhaus, As I Lay Dying: Meditations on Returning (Basic Books, 2002).

Million Dollar Baby vs. House

***SPOILER ALERT***

Thanks to JT for forwarding this article to me. Chuck Coleson (BreakPoint, Prison Fellowship) got the same message out of the Million Dollar Baby film as I did...which is great comfort to me as I respect Coleson's opinions quite a bit. He also reviews a cable doctor show called "House" and gives it a thumbs-up.

For most of its two-and-a-quarter hours, Million Dollar Baby is a story about love and determination. Frankie and Maggie need each other because they both have something to prove, to themselves and to others. Under Frankie’s tutelage, Maggie rises through the ranks of women’s boxing.

Then tragedy strikes: An illegal blow causes Maggie to strike her head against the stool. She’s left as a quadriplegic. Frankie works just as hard at trying to help Maggie adjust to her new life out of the ring as he did helping her in the ring. But that’s not what she wants. She wants Frankie to help her end her life—which he does.

Why? As Frederica Mathewes-Green wrote, it’s not because she’s in pain or even because she’s depressed. Rather, it’s because “she can’t bear to be a has-been.” In the moral universe of the film, “anyone who comes to the end of their 15 minutes of fame is justified in seeking suicide.” The idea that, as with my friend, Joni Eareckson Tada, life goes on even after paralysis—and is even richer, perhaps—is alien to this universe.

The Million Dollar Follow-up

Posted just this afternoon on www.foxnews.com:

Critics Enter Ring Against Eastwood:
Marcie Roth, executive director of the National Spinal Cord Injury Association, said her group has been working to improve conditions for the disabled since 1948, "yet lo these many years later, many people still think having a spinal-cord injury is a fate worse than death. Unfortunately, a message like the one in `Million Dollar Baby' just perpetuates exactly what we work so hard to dispel."

To read the NSCIA full statement: http://www.spinalcord.org/news.php?dep=1&page=0&list=281

To read the Fox News article in it's entirety: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,146328,00.html

In related news, visit: http://www.notdeadyet.org/

Million Dollar Baby

***SPOILER ALERT***

I saw the movie "Million Dollar Baby" on Wednesday night. I had never even heard of the movie and had no idea what it was about. The guys I was with just said, "It's about a girl boxer." Indeed, that is how it began. But half way through it, the movie completely and unexpectedly came to a screeching halt and shifted gears. The boxer (Hilary Swank) broke her neck and got laid up in a hospital. She was on a respirator and eventually had a leg amputated due to bed ulcers. I was encouraged at this point that the movie was going to turn from a shallow "guts and glory" storyline to a Joni Tada theme of courage and overcoming odds. Not so. After a time, Swank gets sick of being bedridden and asks her trainer (Clint Eastwood) to do the loving thing and put her out of her misery. He goes through a very brief see-saw of emotions and the movie culminates with Eastwood unscrewing her respirator tube.

I could list probably a dozen things wrong with the message and theology of this movie's storyline so I will do my best to stay off my soapbox and merely discuss the one topic relevant to this blog. And that is the myth that disabled people are miserable and want to die. Swank's speech, appealing to Eastwood, was noteworthy. The reason it was all over for her was because, "they used to line up to see me, they would chant my name, I was in magazines...."

This movie fails to differentiate between two very distinct things, namely, living a valid, happy, fulfilled life vs. living a life of fame and glory. It wasn't that Swank couldn't be happy without a leg, it was that she couldn't box without one. It wasn't that people wouldn't love her anymore, but that she wouldn't be loved by thousands of adoring fans. It wasn't the loss of quality living she dreaded, it was the loss of her own glory.

The message of this film goes far beyond euthanasia. The film perpetuates the myth that our purpose in life is to acquire fame, stature, and glory and if our physical body restricts us from achieving that goal, there is no reason left to keep going.

This man-centered approach to life will result in nothing but depression and failure (whether disabled or not) because we were not put on this earth to achieve our own glory, but to give our glory over to Christ.