Essential reading, as end-of-life policy is in the news

For anyone keeping an eye on news involving the right to life, this has been quite a week. The American Medical Association’s House of Delegates refused to endorse assisted suicide. The next day, New York legislators voted to legalize assisted suicide. At this writing, the bill is on its way to the governor.

Deadly Compassion: the Death of Ann Humphry and the Truth About Euthanasia, a book published 30 years ago, seems startlingly relevant once again. While in part a history of a movement, it is primarily the story of Ann Humphry, her friendship with author Rita Marker, and the malignant influences that affected Humphry’s decision to take her own life. Such stories about individuals at their most vulnerable affect public policy more than any opinion poll or collection of statistics ever can.

Marker was founder of an organization dedicated to combating assisted suicide and euthanasia. In the course of her work, she met Ann Humphry, whose husband Derek was a leading light of the pro-euthanasia Hemlock Society. The two women developed a warm friendship that ended only with Ann’s death, the circumstances of which were closely tied to the movement promoted by her by-then-estranged husband.

Even in her grief over Ann Humphry’s death, Marker did not resort to melodrama when she wrote Deadly Compassion. She was smart enough to know that the bare facts were dramatic enough on their own.

If you’ve ever wondered how some of our states got to a point where the direct intentional termination of human life has been adopted by legislators as a desirable policy, the answer is “little by little.” Decades after its publication, Deadly Compassion continues to make the case for resisting the creeping tide.

Note: Following Marker’s recent death, her organization’s work is being continued by the Institute for Patients Rights.

A fleeting gem

I spent part of the Memorial Day weekend enjoying a good long walk on the Rockingham Recreational Trail, one of the many rail trails gracing New Hampshire. How good it felt to shake off the recent rains! 

I saw plenty of cyclists. I’ll bet they were moving too fast to see what was in bloom along the way. I’d never before seen so many ladyslipper flowers in a single outing. They were a deeper pink than the ones I’ve seen earlier in the season – dark enough to show the flower’s delicate veining that’s not discernible in paler blossoms. 

Ladyslippers are ephemeral, like nearly every other spring flower. They’ll be gone in a couple of weeks, re-emerging next year or the year after. But what treasures they are, while they last! There’s no point in trying to cut or transplant them. They simply don’t survive such things. I have to take them on their own terms, right where they are. 

Excerpted from Braided Trails.

New vision

What would you do if you got one of your senses back?

I had cataract surgery recently. As surgical procedures go, it’s quite common and quick. The result astounded me. I don’t know why people who’ve had the surgery aren’t out stopping traffic to tell people about it.

a pair of glasses resting atop a closed laptop computer
Glasses, headed for retirement. Ellen Kolb photo.

I’d worn glasses since I was 8, thanks to myopia that grew severe as I became an adult. My vision was correctible with thick lenses, but without glasses I could see very little. Then came the cataracts, and what little night vision I had disappeared. Finally, my eye doc said I qualified for the surgery.

(I should re-phrase that: my condition was such that my health insurance would pay for the surgery. That’s what “qualifying” means these days.)

My eyes post-op are “settling down,” in the surgeon’s words, but already I’m amazed at what I can see now. I’d been told that the newly-implanted lenses would sharply reduce my need for glasses, but nobody told me that everything would look bigger. That’s what happens when an artificial lens is in the eye instead of half an inch away. 

I looked out my front window a few days ago, and marveled at the details of birds, tree bark, and even the neighbors’ car. (Nice paint job.) While singing at Easter Mass, I could see the people in the rear pews and read the music in front of me. At the same time, I realized that such delights probably weren’t what the surgery was for.

My good vision, gone since I was a child, has been restored by the grace of God guiding the skill of a physician. He didn’t restore it so I could stare at the tree bark. At least, I don’t think so.

So what am I to do with this gift? How can I possibly express enough gratitude for my vision? 

I don’t have an answer. I’ll be working it out over time. My hikes, for one thing: I’ll literally never see my trails in the same way again. I’ll need to convey that joy somehow. 

Originally published at Braided Trails.