The best argument against euthanasia

These two Sisters came to Rome at few years ago on a very, very rare pilgrimage, as the community takes its vow of poverty very, very seriously. Not the kind to be jet-setting all over the world. Here they are (just above) visiting the lovely Santa Sabina, the headquarters of the Order of Preachers, the Dominicans.

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I've known them, the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, since 1986 when one of my closest friends joined the community. The Sisters are intelligent, fun and prayerful. They do only one thing: out of love for God, they take care of terminally ill cancer patients for free. They do not accept any insurance or any funding from national, state or local sources, nor do they accept money from patients or patients' families.

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They were founded to serve the poor, but have never imposed a means test on the people they admit. The Sisters are all nurses (well, nearly all of them). They are specialists, indeed geniuses, in palliative care. People of all different backgrounds come to them, and people of all faiths and no faith. Yet to the best that any of the Sisters can recall (and some of them are very old, with lengthy institutional memories) no one, not one single person, in their care at any time in the last 100 years has asked to be euthanized.

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Yes, my Sister friend has said she has had a few patients over the years who were suffering greatly and expressed the wish that they could die, but they have never actually asked for something so that they could be "put out of their misery." Not one of them has. Including the patients who are atheists, or who might be suffering from severe depression and its attendant thoughts of suicide.

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Why?

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There's not much of an answer. Even my friend the Sister said: "What we do is very simple." The patients are very well cared for, their pain is managed as well as it can be, the Sisters do all of the nursing, and even in the middle of the night there is always at least one Sister on the floor. I know their hospitals or homes well -- they are peaceful and clean and bright. Mass and the daily round of prayers are broadcast throughout the buildings. Naturally, the Sisters live just upstairs.

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Think about it: no one has asked to be euthanized. Not once in a hundred years.