Diminishing Life's Sanctity

CBS had their Sunday morning news show do a story on how La Crosse, Wisconsin has managed to persuade ninety-six percent of residents to prepare advance end of life directives. These directives are not aimed at preserving or extending the sacred gift of human life, but about giving physicians and other so-called "care providers" a road map to terminate old or medically-compromised patients and legal cover for when they implement this pathway toward hastened deaths. If care is denied, how can it be presumed that the care if it had been given might not have prolonged the patient's life while preserving at least some functionality and quality of life. The mindset evinced here is that of the death panel in action. It is about saving money and opening intensive care bed space at the expense of the most vulnerable. It is a sort of medical predation, not aimed at a euthanasia to ease the pain of patients but at prematurely ending what still could be viable, even enjoyable lives. We are becoming a society that does the medical equivalent of setting the elderly adrift on ice flows because they are too much of a burden, and this negates the meaning of civilization and steals the singularly precious gift the Lord has blessed us with- that being LIFE!