Gary Nelson: It has become so easy to take a human life
Re “Bishop should butt out of assisted-suicide debate” (Letters, Sept. 20): Our post-Christian modern society is certainly challenging time-honored beliefs. For instance, the medical creed of “Do No Harm” is starting to look like, to paraphrase an Oakland Raider motto, “Just Kill, Baby.”
Praising the misguided thought that anyone has the right to take a human life, whether it is resting in the womb or laying in the last days or weeks of existence, is wrong on all levels. It is wrong on natural law, moral law and medical law. Our medical expertise was never intended to take life. And yet, these days it seems our beloved healers are consistently being called upon to take away that which they have sworn to save and protect.
When a Catholic bishop writes an open letter to the public asking for mercy on the most vulnerable of society, he isn’t giving his opinion; he is fulfilling his duty as a successor to the apostles of Jesus Christ to call attention to evil and violence wherever it exists.
We live in a culture that has defined itself in a way remarkably similar to the one the early Christians contended with. The only question is why we doubt 2000 years of successful wisdom.
Gary Nelson, Modesto
This story was originally published September 21, 2015 at 11:17 AM with the headline "Gary Nelson: It has become so easy to take a human life."