By DONALD DeMARCO
It was not very long ago that being “modern” was considered being “up-to-date.” That is no longer the case. Now, if one wants to be in tune with the times, he must be a card-carrying citizen of the postmodern world. Times change, but they do so imperceptibly and often catch people off guard.
A little more than four years ago, in 2010, the Canadian Parliament voted 228-59 against a Private Member’s Bill to legalize euthanasia. On February 6, 2015, all nine Supreme Court judges ruled that prohibitions against physician-assisted suicide constituted a violation of Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Dr. Margaret Somerville, one of Canada’s leading ethicists, has drawn her readers’ attention to how culture can change dramatically: “I suggest that the principal cause is not a change in the situation of individuals who seek euthanasia; rather, it is the profound changes in our postmodern, secular, Western, democratic societies” (The Ethical Canary, p. 121).
What, then, are these changes that have swept over the nation like a colorless, odorless gas and have affected the climate of the times? There are, no doubt, many. Four, in particular, appear to be dominant:
The loss of religion. One of the essential messages inherent in the Judeo-Christian tradition is that suffering can have meaning. In fact, its meaning can be redemptive. As society becomes increasingly secularized, people drift away from religion and therefore away from the meaning of suffering as well as belief in the hereafter. Consequently, pain and suffering become a pointless burden. Death, then, becomes attractive as a reasonable and practical way of ending pain and suffering.
The loss of hope. Viktor Frankl, in his celebrated work, Man’s Search for Meaning, tells how he developed his theory of Logotherapy while he was a prisoner in Auschwitz. According to this new branch of psychiatry, a person can suffer a great deal and resist the temptation to despair as long as he has hope. For Frankl, it is precisely this hope that gives a person a sense of the meaning of his life and the motivation to go on, despite the problems he endures. Yet, hope, a spiritual reality, eludes people in today’s materialistic, postmodern world.
The influence of the media. The media provide its audiences with entertainment. Its commercials are aimed at the various ways in which a person may improve his life, his status, and his happiness. But when the various products that are supposed to make people happy do not provide them with meaning or alleviate their suffering, death becomes attractive. The media are, not surprisingly, strongly in favor of abortion, and forms of euthanasia that promise to end needless suffering.
Hyper-individualism. Abortion is seen as the choice of an individual woman. The father of the child is seen as irrelevant. Abortion is celebrated as giving women “autonomy.” The other side of the coin, however, is a loss of community and ultimately the isolation of the individual from modes of care. Alone, and bereft of encouragement and support, it is easy to understand how individuals, in their vulnerability, begin to desire death. The support of family and society are needed in times of great difficulty. But the aloneness of the individual in such times inclines him accept his peaceful deliverance from the world.
These four factors are entirely external to the patient who is suffering. Secularism robs him of the broad perspective that religion offers. The media are superficial, uncaring, and unreliable. Hope is not in material things or for bodily comfort, but is something transcendent. The meaning of life and the hope it brings are of critical importance. Individualism is a deception, while autonomy is an illusion. Community should not be bartered away.
The postmodern world welcomes euthanasia because it views the human being fraudulently, as a mere individual who is wandering meaninglessly through a world of deceptions. We owe those in moments of suffering and doubt something better: God’s blessing, the wisdom of tradition, and the love that family members, friends, and society can bring. The false assumptions of the postmodern world need to be made visible.
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(Dr. Donald DeMarco is a senior fellow of Human Life International. He is professor emeritus at St. Jerome’s University in Waterloo, Ontario, an adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College in Cromwell, Conn., and a regular columnist for St. Austin Review. His latest work, How To Remain Sane in a World That Is Going Mad, is available through Amazon.com. Some of his recent writings may be found at Human Life International’s Truth and Charity Forum.)
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