The Old Lie’s New Medical Life; Dulce et Decorum Est

There has been a change in recent years from an ethic which prided itself in upholding the sanctity of life to a new ethic which seeks to allow death with dignity. Not only is death with dignity a contradiction in terms, but our society has born witness to a radical shift in values to condone euthanasia both inside and outside of the womb. Just how far such an ethic can be expanded and sanctified by the "white robes of medical garb" -- as it was put by Frank Burns in a MASH episode I remember -- before we admit that our societies have been gripped by suicidal logic remains to be seen. Nevertheless, medical science has blurred the landscape of life and death and in this landscape, people are pushed to impulsive decisions about what right and wrong, meanwhile, a careless and amoral relativism about what other people think is right is stridently declared. In this new morality, everyone is fundamentally good, and above all, the new great sin is to judge another, perhaps because just an inch of criticism might reveal that they are not as fundamentally good as first supposed. One must start asking questions; is the cost of being the masters of our own fate with medicine that we must condone our own suicide and the murder of our progeny? Perhaps that’s what the Catholic Church would prepare an encyclical on, but is the real answer far less interesting and polemical? Perhaps we all bow down to money where the law gives us a chance to discriminate about what life is, and instead of truly making a subjective decision on what is right from the depth of our spirit, our wallet speaks for us and we rationalize it after; “it wasn’t a life”, “he would have wanted it that way,” “it was a justified killing” or even “it was an aggressor.” Come now, let us reason together, aren’t we the most frail and craven creatures? Aren’t we exposed as frauds when reality drops on us with one-thousand pounds of weight? How much can we really afford to try to make life nice and agreeable? Is suicide a luxury? Is it asceticism even to live? Perhaps not, or perhaps not for everyone. Maybe if we could admit our failings however, we could stop pretending that death has any dignity. Perhaps even saying “I killed,” if one thinks that is the truth deep down, is less to be feared than repeating lies about death. Anyone who has read Wilfred Owen’s poem “Dulce et Decorum Est” should know that death is the last thing one should lie about and that there is nothing decorous or dignified about it.