The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1917-10-20

/ ciety knows little more of medicine
| than convocation of Methodist
preachers knows of theology. Nor is
the scientific fraud indigenous to
America alone; one meets him as a
practitioner or Kongres-B ummler in
every nation of Europe. If euthanasia
were legalzed what a boom in that
postmedical activity, the undertaking
business, there would be!
Medical Vagaries.
There are vagaries of our lofty
American civilization called osteo-
| pathy, cheiropraXis and empiriciSm,
compared with which even Christian
Science and homeopathy are profound
wisdom, and these professions" are
taken up lucratively by ambitious
BARRIERS and bankrupt druggists, and
legaliZed by legislatures. These doc
tors strut in high places; they have
suites in office buildings which real
physician could not pay for; they
foregather in what they call medical
congresses. They stroke and pummel
the tremulous awnings on alcoholic
and equity pillars of Church and State
commercially, after the manner of
any rubber in Turkish bathhouse.
They manhandle women who have
strange notions of decency; they
maltreat defenseless children; they
rob the ignorant; they are a disgrace
| to Christianity; yet if euthanasia
were set on the statute books they
would be allowed to murder with i'm
punity. The only reason euthanasia
has not been put on the books is be-
cause the attention of the feminists
in the fool-belt between Milwaukee
and Kansas City has not been called
to it often enough; they have put
| everything else on they could think
of.
Euthanasia has two phases, one
wherein the patient permits his own
death, another wherein the patient is
killed against his will. When a pa
tient compasses his own death he
commits suicide directly or indirectly.
Direct suicide is an evil fundamental
ly not because it Injuries society, or is
against the charity due oneself, or
against the obligation we have to pre-
serve life as the necessary condition
of good, or because it is cowardice,
but it is evil primarily because it is
an usurpation of the rights of God.
The natural law gives. no rights ex-
cept such as are finally founded in
human nature itself, but human
nature cannot give a title to dominion
over ones life. If it gave such title
it would thereby establish the power
Of destroying that life and thus of
removing the basic title to all rights.
Nature, however, exists as the founda-
ton of rights, not for the subversion
Of rights. Again, if nature even re-
motely established the power of self
destruction there should be in nature
destruction, but the direct contrary is
the fact.
Dominion over his own life implies
the power in man of rebelling against
the subsection which he owes to God,
his absolute cause and owner.
; Dominion is a relative thing essen
TALLY; a man cannot own himself any
more than he can be his own aunt or
lift himself over fence with his own
boot-straps. Life~is not a gratuitous
gift; it is an onerous gift.
Tendency of Man.
The ultimate tendency of man is
toward happiness, and, of course, hap
piness, or any other perfection, is inn
possible without existence; hence the
instructive recoil from the destruction
of our life which is the requisite con-
dition for happiness. Even those that
} abnormally destroy their own lives do
so with horror for the destruction it.
self, and act thus unreasonably to
escape evil, not to escape life; or they
seek what they think will be a better
life. The greatest injury in the
natural order we can do a man is to
deprive him of his life, for that depri-
walton destroys every right and pos
session he has. He can recover from
all other evil, or hold his soul above
every other evil, but death is the abso-
| lutte conqueror. No matter how de-
based or how diseased mans body
may be, no one may dissociate that
body from his soul, except in defense
of individual or social life under
peculiarly abnormal conditions; but
:. even such defense is permissible only
while the defender respects other
human life and the social life, while
. he is innocent, has done no harm to
society commensurate with the loss of
his own life. Existence, no matter
how sordid, is UNNECESSARILY better
than non-existence, for non-existence
| is nothing; and eternal life, even as a
J probability, after separation from the
J body raises existence to infinite pos
sibilities above the void of mon
existence. A human life, even in an
Australian Bushman, in a tuberculous
pauper, in the vilest criminal, is in
itself so stupendously noble thing
that the whole universe exists for its
| unfolding toward bettefment. The
raising of human life toward higher
condition has been the sole tendency
! of all the magnificent charity, sacri-
flee, patriotism and heroism Of the
Y H. - q u --..I1