Author skewers euthanasia hypocrisy just as she did abortion

Writing in his celebrated novel 1984, George Orwell describes a dystopic society whose subjects are brainwashed into embracing “doublethink” – the “power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”

Sadly, modern Western society manifests ample evidence that the concept is not mere fiction. This fact is certainly made clear by Stephanie Gray Connors in her new book, Start With What: 10 Principles for Thinking about Assisted Suicide.

Long praised in international pro-life circles for the dexterity with which she argues against abortion, Gray Connors has, in her highly readable new offering, turned her keen mind to the ominous shadow of “medical assistance in dying.” The book is especially timely in Canada, as Parliament considers Bill C-7, which aims to broaden the conditions in which medical personnel can kill patients seeking to die.

While readers will no doubt be moved by the life-affirming tales she relates – including, quite touchingly, one of her own emotional struggles – they will also find great satisfaction in her relentless exposing of hypocrisy and double standards relating to the issue of suicide.

For example, society praises the first responder who talks a suicidal jumper off a ledge; at the same time, politicians pass laws giving other suicidal individuals the right to receive help in killing themselves.

Gray Connors points out that, logically, if some suicidal persons have the right to receive assistance, it’s reasonable that all suicidal persons, even those standing on the ledge of a building or railing of a bridge, should have the same right.

However, “The idea that everyone should equally get suicide assistance generates an almost-universal visceral reaction of horror,” she writes. “And that’s the point: It taps into peoples’ intuition that if it would be wrong to give suicide assistance to everyone, then the most equitable alternative would not be suicide assistance to some, but rather would be suicide assistance to none.”

Another related concern revolves around the use and misuse of the word “dignity” in the assisted-suicide debate. She correctly points out that the moment suicide is labelled as an act of dignity, it implies that those who don’t chose to commit suicide are somehow undignified or, worse, a burden on society.

Gray Connors quotes “Liz,” a patient with kidney cancer, as observing: “What a lonely, uncharitable and fake world we live in if we think it’s somehow undignified to let people see us suffer, to love us and care for us to the end.”

In an interview with The B.C. Catholic, Gray Connors said she did not intentionally set out to expose doublethink and propagandized language, but that it arose naturally out of her observations. For example, she observed that society is worried that pandemic-era anxiety and depression will lead to a spike in suicides, “but when we throw the word ‘assisted’ in front of it, suddenly it gets celebrated. It just makes no sense.”

The “What” of the book’s title refers to Gray Connors’ inspiring observation that people facing a critical illness or crisis in their life would be less likely to seek death if, instead of obsessing about “why” something bad or challenging had happened to them, they focused instead on “what” good they could make of their situation.

“We become miserable when we try to understand ‘why did this terrible thing happen to me, why am I suffering this way, why did I get cancer, why did I become paralyzed?’ There’s not much of a satisfactory answer to that question,” she said.

“But my deepest hope is that people who read the book learn to take the title to heart and to think that whatever miserable, terrible, horrible suffering has happened, [they respond by asking themselves], ‘what can I do in response, how can I move forward, what good am I going to bring out of this thing that isn’t good?’ And it’s that perspective that give us empowerment.”

It’s no accident that such an approach reflects a profoundly Christian worldview. Gray Connors, 40, is a Catholic who graduated from St. John Brebeuf Regional Secondary in Abbotsford. Her book unabashedly connects her pro-life philosophy with her understanding of God’s love for his creations. “Humans are designed for connection and love,” she writes, “but suicide assistance disconnects and robs us of the very lives through which we love.”

Gray Connors dedicates the book to her husband, Joe, and their first child, Laetificat Judah, who died before being born. The couple, who live in Florida, are now expecting another child.

Start With What: 10 Principles for Thinking about Assisted Suicide
By Stephanie Gray Connors
Paperback $14.99
Amazon.ca
Loveunleasheslife.com