04/01/2005: "Culture of life actually a culture of 'living death'?"
Next in my list of columnist to get the wrath of Ken is Alex Epstein. He wrote this column about what he sees as the wrongs of the Culture of Life. Here is my letter that I would have sent to him if he had made his e-mail address available with the article:
In your recent column published in the San Francisco Chronicle you ask your readers to consider what a culture of life would actually be like. In every case you've either greatly distorted the truth or failed to mention some other ramifications of a culture of life. Lets consider those, shall we?
Consider a world where Euthanasia and assisted suicide was legal. Well, really we don't have to consider. We already have an example, the Netherlands. A country where many who want to live are told that there life is not worth living and they are killed despite their wishes. There have been numerous reports at both the beginning and the end of life of people desperate to live having their lives ended without their consent in the name of a "mercy killing".
Is it difficult to live with painful and incurable diseases? Yes it is. Is it difficult to watch someone die a protracted and painful death? Yes it is. However, when life is more to someone that just the collective joys of their experience, they'd rather let nature take its course than artificially end their life. One need only look at the Pope to see that a painful and slow death need not lack dignity. You'd have a hard time convincing him that he's lost his.
Consider a world with abortion on demand. Again, we don't need to consider, we have the example of the entire western world. A world where the entire continent of Europe is de-populating itself and the burden of those in the workforce to provide for the retired people in their countries is unduly high because there are not enough of them, being short their aborted brothers and sisters, to pay for the retirement costs. We in the US are quickly approaching the same reality.
Is it difficult to be pregnant? Yes it is. But those who do not want the "burden" of raising the children they conceived of their own choice (short an EXTREMELY small population that was raped into pregnancy) have the option of adoption. Anyone who has friends who are trying to adopt know how great the demand and loving care that is available for infants who are born to mothers and fathers who choose not to care for them. Ironically the adoption shortage continues to grow as the number of abortions continues to grow over the 40 years since Roe v. Wade.
Finally, consider a world without embryonic stem-cell research. Gee, wouldn't it be horrific if we didn't have all the amazing cures that come from embryonic stem-cell research! Cures like... wait, what are the cures again? Do you mean cures like the ones that adult stem-cell research has produced? The ones that have yet to materialize even though we've been told for 20 years that the real promise is in embryonic stem-cell research? It doesn't seem like that world would be very different from the one we have today except for the fact that our great state wouldn't be short 6 billion dollars in research grants and interest over the next 30 years.
The reality is that no cures have come from embryonic stem-cell research and there have been no recent breakthroughs in these areas. No one with heart disease, diabetes and Alzheimer's have been cured or have the hope of cures from any research that has been done to date. However, there are already a number of in-use adult stem-cell treatments that have been working very effectively.
What could possibly justify a crusade for such a world? "Free choice" they answer. Our lives belong to ourselves, what does it matter if we end them unnecessarily? There are no higher truths we must answer to besides our desires and ambitions no matter the value of those truths and the sacrifices that others must make to enable our desires.
To break from the format of emulating your article's format and prose, you seriously misrepresent the value of suffering in Christian theology. It is true that Christians do not see suffering as the ultimate evil as secularists do. The word sacred used in a secular sense it means 'worthy of respect'. It does NOT mean 'worth having' or 'worth living'. Secularists suggest that all that is meaningful and valuable is the pleasure we derive from our lives. Without it, secularists argue, that life is meaningless. Suffering must be avoided at all costs, including death, they say. Christians disagree. Christian theology says that life is sacred, or said differently worthy of respect, even when it is difficult and pleasure-less. In fact, suffering itself is sacred, again worthy of respect. This is not the same thing as saying "suffering is proof of virtue". In fact, Christian theology says that it is explicitly because of our sinful nature that we suffer. The key to overcoming suffering is not to embrace sinfulness and pleasure, but to repent of ones sins and to turn to God.
Your opinion piece attempts to show that euthanasia, abortion and embryonic stem-cell research are indeed central to a "true" culture of life. What it actually shows is just how warped the secular ideal that life without pleasure is meaningless. It shows how embracing this mindset only lead to a culture that is willing to trump other's value in the pursuit of ones own pleasure. It shows how empty a life without God is, so empty that life ceases to have meaning without the abilities you quote: to think, create, love and be pleasured. That the mentally retarded, the physically handicapped, the abandoned and rejected and finally those in despair, that their lives are as a result, less sacred, less worthy of respect than the rest of us. That these people have less valuable lives. In short, your opinion piece shows how much euthanasia, abortion and embryonic stem-cell research reflects a culture of death.
