The Sanctity of Life

By Amanda McClain
I recently read a moving and persuasive defense of the sanctity of life and the evil of euthanasia. Here's just a small bit of this very personal reflection:

Through four months of shared caring, first at home and then in an excellent hospice, our family has been saying a long good-bye to a middle brother who is now lingering somewhere between heaven and earth…

Life is so very sad and so very beautiful. Some will scoff: "Beauty? What beauty? What kind of sick mind can find beauty in this pietà? It would be more beautiful to help your brother to end his suffering. Real love has nothing in common with pain. What is to be gained from all of this beside some medieval Catholic satisfaction in suffering?"

I can only answer that question with a question: Do you think that giving my lionhearted brother a "compassionate" needle would truly lessen our suffering, or his? By cutting short the process, do we step off the Via Dolorosa and avoid it all, or do we merely thwart a plan for our own lives? Should we steal from our brother the opportunity for him to reach out a hand and have it immediately grasped, to have everything about his existence affirmed, over and over?

Should we steal from ourselves the opportunity to love?

Read the whole piece and learn "that life brings love, and love is God; that life interrupted is love interrupted, and love interrupted is God interrupted."