Compassion and Love: The Antidote for Sentimentalism at the End of Life

The author identifies an increasingly common phenomenon of sentimentalist "pro-lifers" who embrace physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia because sentimental pro-life slogans readily lead to acceptance of these acts. A more principled and rational opposition to various manifestations of the culture of death including assisted suicide and euthanasia is needed. The author proposes that a robust understanding of compassion and love provide an entry point into the discussion that is both rational and emotional. Drawing upon the magisterial teaching of the Church and lived witnesses to that teaching, the essay shows how suffering with the sufferer is the only fitting response to those who suffer at the end of life. A compassionate presence in which caretakers become co-sufferers treats the patient as a subject with great dignity, while euthanasia and assisted suicide treat him as an object to be discarded.