Speaker 1: And we are back with another edition of the Federalist
Radio Hour. I'm Att Kittle, Senior Elections correspondent at the
Federalist and your experienced Shirpa on today's quest for Knowledge.
As always, you can email the show at radio at
the Federalist dot com, follow us on x at fbr LST,
make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcast, and
of course the premium version of our website as well.
Our guest today is Charlie Kemosi, Professor of Moral theology
and Bioethics at the Catholic University of America, an author
of Living and Dying Well, a Catholic Plan for Resisting
Physician assists did Killing. Charlie, thank you so much for
joining us, and it's a very important topic on this
edition of the Federalist Radio Hour.
Speaker 2: Thanks Matt. I'm a longtime fan of the Federalist Radiour,
so I'm glad to be beyond again.
Speaker 1: Well, we're very, very delighted to have you here. It's
a tough topic to talk about. You've written extensively on
this topic and an extremely important topic because we live
in such a death culture. As a matter of fact,
you write the complex paradoxical relationship with death in the
consumerist West is playing out in ways that are quite dramatic.
Our culture is now at a tipping point when it
comes to physician assisted killing. I think I know exactly
what you mean, but please explain. Elucidated.
Speaker 2: So, especially as the culture is secularized, and especially as
medicine as secularized, we've lost a sense of what actually
makes people thataluble a foundational question like what is it
that gives us dignity, that gives us fundamental equality? And
in light of that, what we end up with is
a situation where we kind of have the remnants of
a Christian ethic in many places we sort of still
hold on to it. I was on Tucker Carlson's podcast recently.
I use the example of cut flowers, right, like we
kind of You can cut the flowers from their foundations,
from their roots, and they can still be beautiful and
vibrant for a while, but once you cut them from
that foundation, they're going to die. And what I see
happening all over this country, and it hasn't happened fully yet,
is the fact the dying of this foundation of human dignity.
And so we can imagine that. You know, hey, if
you are I've lost your autonomy, if you've lost enjoyable activities,
if you feel like your life is not valuable. In
the Netherlands, they're talking about legalizing it for people who
are just quote unquote tired of life. Yes, tragic, tragic, right,
And so certain states, as you may know, in the
United States have legalized this, some including interestingly blue progressive states,
rejecting and still holding on to this concept of human dignity.
But one of the central arguments I make in the
book is unless we really hold on to that Christian
concept of human dignity, that it's a theological concept, we
simply won't be able to push back on what's coming.
Speaker 1: Well, you're right a lot about that. In fact, you
have a book on the throwaway culture, throwaway society, and
that's I think that sums it up where we are
in twenty twenty five. Everything is instant gratification through technology.
AI is, you know, pushing us past our humanity. And
the worst part of it all as you delve into
this is the death of the spirit, death of the
spiritual connection that seems to be to me driving this
death culture. In the main.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because we're meaning making creatures, we're value laid in creatures.
We're not going to be able to get rid of
that part of ourselves. So when we extricate the spiritual,
we extricate the theological. It's not as if we have
I mean, except for a very rare, disturbed person. It's
not as if people have no meaning or no values.
In fact, what we've and you read the word consumerist,
I think that's probably the uniting factor in all these things, right,
the sense of value coming from what it can produce
in the marketplace. And for those who want to consume,
if you have something to offer, then your life is valuable.
If he has something to offer in that realm. If
you have nothing to offer, or if God forbid, you're
a net burden when it comes to that, then maybe
you have a a duty to die. A phrase that
we've heard in bioethics for many years now is the
right to die quickly becomes the duty to die. And
if you ask people who especially in Oregon, who've had
this for so long since the nineties, if you ask them,
you know, what are the main reasons why you're a
questing physician? Assisted killing? I get into more of this
if you like. But the bottom line is, you know,
fear of pain and suffering is not really driving this
at all. One of the most important reasons people request
physician assistant killing is the fear of being a burden
on others, right, And this is consumerist language. This is
language about you know, you know, my value comes from
my not being a burden on you or the society.
But that's if anything, in Christianity, it's inverted, right. Those
who are quote unquote the most burdensome are actually have
the most value. Those those who are the most unlovable
are those were called to love the most and that
Christ's holy is present in them in a special way.
And again, unless we can somehow capture this, and I
think there is reason to think that we could, we're
just going to continue down this throwaway society that sees
people as things to be discarded when they lose their
consumers value, their value in the marketplace.
Speaker 1: That's interesting on so many different levels, and you've had
a chance, and others in your field of bioethics have
had the opportunity to really explore this. Unfortunately, but this
is what we're dealing with. You know, generation plus of
assisted killing in the state of Oregon. And I look
at what about a dozen assisted killing states in this country, well,
at least eleven in the district of Columbia. Most of
these states are out west. Why do you think that is?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting you mentioned that. I've noticed that too.
It's also interesting to note, isn't I be curious about
your views on this? You know, these are generally, you know,
we sort of call them blue states or progressive states,
but a number of blue and progressive states on the
East Coast have not done this. In fact, they've rejected it. Connecticut,
for instance, has rejected physician assistant suicide now for fourteen
years in a row. Maryland I think ten or eleven
years in a row. New York until this year, had
resisted it a decade as well. And Kathy Oakle has
not signed the Billy Head. It's interesting to see what
she's actually doing here. But yeah, so back to your
original question, which is these You know, we had Oregon,
we had Washington, and then we had the famous at
least in my world. I don't know if you remember
your listeners will remember at the Brittany Maynard case, the
oh sure, the young woman who had a horrible brain tumor,
and you know, everyone just rightly had terrible sympathy for her, Yes,
and she said I have to go to Oregon to
i myself essentially, and that prompted a well funded public campaign,
assisted in part by Campassion and Choices formerly a Hemlock society,
to really use her in her story to change this,
and California as a result did change it. And my
theory on this, and it's more of a hunch than
a well researched theory, is that the kind of sort
of independent minded, like autonomous, clear yourself up by your
own bootstraps image that the United States has sort of
overall is particularly present even in you know, in a
particular way in the West, right, people still have a
kind of Western ideal about that, even in deep blue states.
And of course that's the language that's used in most contexts,
including I'm open minded to your listeners who may disagree
with me on this topic. By the way, you know,
this idea that is regularly brought forth as the first
argument is who is anyone to tell me what I
can do with my body right and my life and
my death right. This is just an individual's right to
decide however they want, you know, with regard to this,
and I think that's my Again, it's more of a
hunch than a well researched theory. My hunch is that
out west that tends to play better, and on the
East coast maybe there's a bigger sense of well, yes,
that's true as far as it goes, but we also
have duties to the broader culture, and a lot of
these people who are going to feel coerced to do
this don't in fact have autonomy. This is the big
argument of the disability RICE groups. You say, well, you
guys are talking about autonomy and freedom and choice. That's
not the experience of so many disabled people who in
fact do feel like burdens, right, who are made to
feel like burdens in many ways. And they're the best.
I mean, I don't see any example of any other
any better resistor or physician assisted killing the disability RICE community.
They've just been absolutely heroic on this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I couldn't agree with you more. I think
that spirit of individuality that made this country so great
also plays out in the argument of self governance, and
to this degree, down where it should be to the
individual that said when they make the argument as the
individualistic do, and I couldn't agree with the more on
so many things and self governance, they make the argument,
who are you to tell me what I can do
with my body? That is where your book particularly comes in,
because the who in this is for Christians, our Lord
and our Savior and the God of all. That's really
what it comes down to. But I think it's we've
lost so much of that because we've lost so much
faith in this country.
Speaker 2: Yeah, including very basic things that only a generation or
two ago would have been taken for granted, like even
to use a fancy academic word, the anthropology or vision
of the human person has changed. Once theology exits, once
faith exits, because we talk and this is very much
present in the AI and transhumanist understanding of the human person.
That's so nefarious in my view. We now talk about
having a body like we sort of have a smartphone,
or we have a messenger bag, or we have a
wallet or something, as if it's this added thing that
is like interchangeable. I've heard the phrase meat lego gnosticism
use more and more to describe this, like we just
have meat legos that we can move around, if we
decided we're a different gender, or you know, if we
just you know, for any reason at all. Like it's
just again, it's all about the individual who can do
whatever they want with their body. But of course, if
you're a Christian, you believe that you don't have a body,
that you are a body, right, that your soul and
body are deeply connected in a way that, for tradition,
ever since the ancient Church thought about this is called
a hylomorphic connection. The soul is the form of the body.
You don't have one without the other. And so when
we talk about having bodies and you can do whatever
you want with your body, it's a fundamental misunderstanding. It's
also misunderstanding because the body that you quote unquote have
isn't yours. It's a gift from God. Right, you are
given a gift, and it's not for you to do
whatever you want with this body. Quite the contrary. Right,
there are all sorts of things, and this is well
played out in the abortion debate. There are all sorts
of things you can do with your body that are
totally illegitimate because it isn't for you just to do
whatever you want with There are but again, we have
a culture where it's in some ways I think we
might be having a little bit of a revival. But
for decades now we've had a culture which has been
really hesitant to even have those kinds of discussions because again,
you know, it's in every individual for themselves get to
decide this, and who are we to impose something onto them?
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Speaker 1: It is interesting to me back to the notion of
where these laws exist, and like we said, many of
them in the western part of this country. But you
mentioned the Blue States I have, to date, for the
most part, pushed back on these kinds of laws. Yet
the Blue States are immersed in the death culture with abortion.
What do you think is the disconnect there from one
to the other, because they certainly don't have that same sense,
it seems to me with the unborn.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's it's a really interesting and important question. As
a bioethicists who focuses a lot on both the beginning
and end of life, I've thought about this a lot,
and I'm not sure I have a perfect answer to it,
but here's my best shot. I think what's going on
here is abortion is so personal for so many people.
There just been, as you know and have discussed on
your show. I mean to call it a massive number
of abortions that take place, since Roe really doesn't describe it.
I mean, we're talking dozens of millions of abortions, right,
and so many people are yeah, yeah, that's the right virtually,
and and the kind of pain that abortion causes women, families, husbands, boyfriends, partners, hookups,
parents is just so overwhelming that I think we have
I'm not the only one to call it abortion distortion.
I think abortion is just sort of uniquely a distorted
It produces a uniquely distorted discourse, such we can't even
really have a coherent conversation about it, not because people
are dumb or people, you know, I think there's just
so much pain associated with it. It's just overwhelming. I
don't think many as many people have such a personal
experience with these sets of issues. I mean many of
us and I just lost my dad last week. Many
of us have experienced with people dying, but not as
much with you know, the the fight and the decision
over physician assist a killing, in part because it's not
legal in many states. So because the the discourse is
not as toxified, it's not as filled with people hurting,
people who just really find it difficult to engage. I
think because of their hurt and pain, we can have
a more coherent conversation about it. So, you know, when
people just lazily make the point my body, my life,
my choice, even progressives, even progresses in deep blue states
like Massachusetts, can say, well, that's fine, but actually that
sounds like a libertarian point of view, And what about
social justice concerns? Right? What about how this affects vulnerable
populations like disabled populations, What about older people who feel
like they might be forced to sort of get off
the train, right if they feel like they're being a burden.
What about deeply disabled children. We've seen this. This isn't
quite an end of life issue in the same way,
but we've seen the debate over infanticide related to abortion,
which is also related off into disability. Right, Like disabled
children who survive abortions, how should we think about them, Well,
it's often related to the disability, right, it was spina
bifitter or somebody with Down syndrome or something like that.
They tend to get put into this category. But it's
really the same kind of logic. It was the same use
and throwaway logic. And I think that that is just
more resonant to people because they can see how, oh,
just letting powerful people make choices that's going to end
up hurting vulnerable people. And it's true in abortion, it's
true at the end of life. But I think we
can have a better conversation at the end of life
than we can. It seems totally clear you have a
better conversation about end of life issues than we can
beginning of life issues.
Speaker 1: Interesting, I think the phrase quality of life continues to
dominate that end of life discussion. Our guest today is
Charlie Kemosi, Professor of moral theology and bioethics at the
Catholic University of America and author of the new book
Living and Dying Well, a Catholic plan for resisting physician
assisted killing. You mentioned it before, and first and foremost,
our condolence is. My condolence is to you on the
passing of your father. I have been where you are
standing today. I think I told you that in our conversation,
our communications in the email. I have lost my parents
over time, and it's not easy. It's not an easy process.
But I think about you writing this book, this book
now just coming out, and the interesting gift perhaps, and
I don't want to speak for you, but the gift
of writing this book, you know, getting the concepts into
this book, the scripture into this book, and then living it.
If you could explain that experience, I think that would
be edifying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Matt has been something else because I put all
of my time, not all of my time, but a
huge amount of time and effort into writing this book
over a year, and right about the time the book
is going to come out, my dad andwers his final
few weeks of life. And in a way, I mean,
there are so many gifts. One important gift was I
had already thought through in a very intense way, so
many things regarding death and what it means to lose somebody,
but also what it means to gain from death, and
what it meant for my father to lose his earthly
life and gain something else. And even in this, in
this life, you know, one of the crucial it's not
the only question, but one of the crucial questions that
this whole discourse puts into sharp relief is is the
nature of suffering? Right? And again, as we've secularized and
we moved towards a more consumeris and even utilitarian understanding
of the good, suffering is really bad, right, It's only
something to be avoided. But in a Christian context, of course,
the suffering and death of Christ is the paradigmatic example
of an event that changed all of the universe. Right,
And and we when we suffer and we die, we
participate in the suffering death of Christ as his sibling
who has been baptized and has become a brother and
sister in Christ. And this was on full display. This
is not some theologian just sort of spouting abstract stuff
in a podcast. I've lived this with my father over
the last few weeks. His suffering and death actually produced
an I mean, drew him to Christ in a way
was really extraordinary. Even people in my family who are
not strong believers could see it.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: He became a different kind of person. He in is different,
a different kind of life. He was a little bit
salty and a little bit confrontational and very aggressive, and
he may may not have passed on some of those
things to me, unfortunately, but in the last several weeks
of his life he was incredibly kind, incredibly generous, and
incredibly gentle, not confrontational, totally centered on others. I mean,
I was with him in the hospital the last week
when it was clear that things were not going well
and he was probably enter hospice soon, and he couldn't
really talk very much and much less asked questions. The
only question he asked me during that several days I
spent with the hospital was how is Maryanne doing? That's
my mom. So he was just deeply concerned about his
wife and how she was dealing with everything here. And
this is not a unique experience anybody, and I tell
a lot of these stories in the book, anybody who
spends a signific amount of time with individuals and families
who go through a good dying process. And that's important
to know. It was not good my father died, was
not good that he suffered, but it was overall a
good death. This happens all the time. But there's really
only the only way it really makes sense, I think anyway,
is if you put it in a theological key. Otherwise
it's really really difficult to make sense of.
Speaker 1: It, no doubt about it. And you know that is
the notion of your book here, you know, the core
of it, how to Die Well. And it's an interesting
turn of phrase. I mean, I can just share with
you my experience of back in late two thousand and
eight when my dad, love him dearly. I mean, he
was in a hospital. We were told that he had
maybe a couple of days, if not hours to live,
and they were absolutely right about that. He had suffered
and had pain for some time. And I just I
remember him when cousins and uncles were in the hospital
room and uh they were, you know, uh chatting and
getting a little bit loud I know my dad always
loved conversing. He always loved being in places and talking
to people. My mom said, quiet down, guys, quiet down,
Papa is trying to rest. And I heard him say
it was one of the last, one of the few
last things that he said. He said, no, no, I
love to hear their voices. And my dad taught me
so many things in my life, but he taught me
how to die. Well, that's my own personal experience. What
is it?
Speaker 2: How is it? How do you die? Well? The complicated
question that has a complicated answer, and I essentially spent
a book trying to answer it. Though it's not a
long book for those of them might want to buy it,
under two hundred pages. I think the experience that at
least I can glean from your father's death and mind
that are very similar is family was all around them.
And that was the case for us too. We had
kids and grandkids and spouses, and everybody would say, you know,
when a different child or grandchild arrive, they'd say, oh,
this person's here, Dad, this other person is here, Dad.
And he was able to you know, it was hard
for him to talk, and he was in and out,
but you know, he was able to say, oh, thank
you for coming. Oh, I can't believe you're here. Was
such a long way. And it sounds like your father
was also surrounded by family at the time of his death.
That is unfortunately not a normative experience for many people.
And we pushed death out of our social consciousness and
sometimes our literal space. Is right, we just push people
even into these horrific so called care homes run by
often companies that are purchased up by investors who are
using it purely as a money making opportunity, who hire
the minimum staff necessary to make money. And these people
often die and incredible loneliness, despair, sometimes in their own fezis,
sometimes with bed sores, sometimes with nothing to do really
all day long, but watch a television that they can't
really hear very well or understand. And one of the
key points I make in the book is we have
to bring death back into the home. We have to
bring death back in the dying process, and so maybe
most importantly the dying process, and it used to be different.
One of the things I guess a lot of people knew,
but I didn't know. But writing the book helped remind
me of or learned for the first time. I don't know,
was that when we use the phrase funeral parlor, which
actually there aren't a lot of funeral parlors as much
as they used to be. People don't even want to
do that anymore. So I want to push death as
far away from their social consciousness as possible. That comes
from a time in which the bodies were actually laid
out in the parlor of the home, right right front
of the home, where of course everyone in the whole family,
from the youngest child to the oldest person in the family,
would engaged body, be around the body, welcome well wishers
and fellow mourners into the parlor to share stories and
to hug and cry and just be there for each
other right as a community. That's the kind of thing now.
I don't know if we need to totally recover everything
about that time, but the general point is death was
not this thing that we pushed off into places where
we didn't want to confront it. I mean, it's an
astonishing it astonishing. I I don't know if this is
a good example to use, but I sometimes, you know,
geek out with Marvel movies and whatever, and I saw
the opening to the Deadpool and Wolverine movie. I don't
know if you've seen it or any of your listeners
have seen it, but it's this unbelievable orgy of death
right and and it's and it's almost it is meant
to be sort of humorous. It's that it's that orgiastic
of a of a I don't need to explain this
the thing, but that to have a culture that has
that movie make I think it made a billion dollars right, Uh,
open to that, But then have a at the same time,
a culture that cannot possibly imagine that that that that
moment of laying out the body in a funeral parlor
and having neighbors come to pay respects is all by itself.
A major part of the problem here is people, once
confronted with death, imagine, well, I don't want any of that,
and I don't want to inflict that on my family
or my community. I just want out. I just I
just want this other thing.
Speaker 1: Well, Seinfeld, I think had perhaps one of the truest
jokes about all of that all time, doing his stand up.
Speaker 2: For you Know.
Speaker 1: One of the episodes of Seinfeld, he began by saying,
you know. According to a study, more people are afraid
of public speaking than they are of death. And he said,
so based on that, you would rather be giving the
eulogy than you know, rather be in the coffin than
giving the eulogy. But that's not you know that it's
there is something to that. But you're right, this fear
of death in a death culture, immersed by so much
death and dying. I mean, we just got through a
killing season of COVID and it really brought that home.
I think of as you mentioned movies, the beginning of
Saving Private Ryan. You want to talk about an orgy
of death, you know that's not fantasy. You know, the
storming of Normandy was real and thousands of men perished
on that day. You know, in World War Two we've
lived through, you know, within our lifetimes, major events, cataclysmic events,
death events. But with all of that in context, when
you said, in your right, and it's so sad, so
many people languishing away in these nursing homes or hospice care,
whatever it is. And if there aren't in so many cases,
there aren't family, there aren't connections around. I know that
there are a lot of people listening to our conversation
today saying, oh my goodness, I never want to go
like that, And so that concept is behind this assisted
killing idea, along with I never want to be a burden.
I never want to suffer is up there too, and
I never want to languish in one of these places.
So I have an option here. How do you how
do you go up against that? Because that is a
very understandable human response.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. I explicitly focus on that very argument throughout
the book that and it's one of in some ways,
it's the motivation for writing the book, because I am
the first person in line to make physician assisted killing
a legal and that we need to work politically to
accomplish that. But there's there's a demand, not just a
supply question here too. We have to focus on the demand,
and what you just described is the primary going to
If it isn't now, it is going to be the
primary demand. People look into their future, especially if they're
part of the growing number of dozens of millions of
people diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's or other kinds of dementia,
and they're going to say, wait a minute, I'm going
to lose my faculties. I'm going to be crapping in
my underwear. I'm going to have no one around me
who cares. I'm going to be an understaffed facility. I'm
going to be put in front of a television or
at best, maybe a robot that we're now starting to
see so called robot care, especially in the age of AI,
where we're going to fool these poor people into thinking
they're actually having a conversation with someone. I can understand.
I'm the hope. It's clear. I'm the strongest opponent of
assisted killing that you can imagine. But I can understand
why someone would see that future and say that's not
for me. What else you got? And if this is it?
So we have to we really have to find a way.
I mean, we should do it. We should be doing
this anyway, regardless of any fight over physician assisted killing,
but especially in light of the fight over a physician
assist the killing. We need to fundamentally rethink how people
who age enter the dying president, the dying process, and
then die, how that all works out in terms of
welcome them into our communities. Well, Francis, whatever you think
of them, had a really really important understanding of how
this works, and you mentioned it earlier, throw away culture
versus a culture of encounter and hospitality. That the antidote
to throwaway culture is a counterculture of encounter and hospitality.
And sometimes that means welcoming people into your home and
being in homes that are that aren't what we're normally
used to, this sort of antiseptic, you know, hyper consumerist
home that that can't even imagine a person dying it, right,
that's so far from anything that anybody would ever experience.
But I got to tell you that again, going back
to this experience I just had. My dad died at home.
He died surrounded by his children, his wife, and his grandchildren,
and it was a holy moment. It was a wonderful moment.
In some ways it was a horrible moment, but in
some ways it was an incredibly sacred, beautiful moment. And
that house will always bear those memories that that that
that you know, whenever I enter that house, that that
I will be thinking about that moment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I can certainly understand that. Mine was our
situation was in the hospital. I had an aunt who
died surrounded by her family and her home during COVID,
and so I have experiences but I watched my dad
die and I never thought I could do that. I
never thought I was that type of person. But my
mom and I were in the room, we were the
only ones when he passed. And as heartbreaking as that
was for me, understandably, I think we all can understand
that I have taken it as a great, great gift.
There was something so important in that moment, something so
beyond this world of consumerism, so beyond the temporal. It
was really, you know, a moment that I was with
him and with God, and that is something that will
never ever leave me all of my days on earth.
But we are seeing more and more of the death
culture in America, so much more acceptable, and it's even
worse elsewhere you mentioned it earlier. In the Netherlands, we
are seeing a movement of assisted killing, physician assisted killing
that includes it includes killing someone or helping someone die
who is depressed, someone who just is tired of living.
And that is a really really dangerous place to be.
Where do things stand on that front? And do you
see that moving more and more into this country?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's hard to imagine that it won't
because the logic is pretty clear. Once you say This
is about your autonomous right to do whatever you want
with yourself, with your body, with your life, and with
your death, and no one can judge anything about that.
Only you, the master of your universe, can decide anything
about this. Well, then any sort of limitations just logically
don't make any sense. Right. Most of the laws in
the United States that permit this in various states have
a limit of six months. The doctors have to say
you're going to die within six months or two or
three or whatever the particular law is. But that's totally arbitrary.
And early on, relatively early on, Oregon said that is arbitrary.
We want extend it to twelve months. And guess who
opposed it. It was Compassionate Choices. It was the former
Hemlock Society, not because they had any principal objection, but
they didn't want it. You and I on podcasts like
this or others to be able to say, once you
put this in place, there's no stopping it. And so
they've been so they've been so smart, they've been so
on message on point here. But when we look at
the Netherlands, and especially when we look at Canada, oh
my gosh, what's gone what's going on in Canada is
in such an incredibly short time. I mean, there was
just this wonderful I know people can have opinions about
the Atlantic, but there was this wonderful article in the Atlantic,
I think, just two or three days ago, an incredibly
reported out piece that guys deeply into what's going on there,
and it is just offul. I encourage all the listeners
to look this up. One in twenty people now die
in Canada be a physician assistant killing That is That
is stunning. That is a number that we simply cannot
just state and let pass. That is a gut punch
to humanity. And I don't remember the exact date that
it was our year that it was legalized. I think
I'm just sort of winging it here. It may have
been twenty sixteen, but it's relatively the recent, not like Oregon,
which has had it since the nineties. And so all
of this has been going on in Canada in less
than a decade. Now, I mean, forget forget the numbers
for a second. Just think about some of these stories.
There was this poor woman, she's in public housing, and
this shows the asinine arguments about autonomy and this is
not about autonomy. This is about vulerble populations. If she's
in public housing, she can't afford housing because he's in
public housing. Right, That's that's her context. She says, there's
something going on in my housing, right, I have there's
toxic toxic paint, or I'm having some kind of overwhelming
reaction to whatever is going on in this house. I
can't live in this house. I need different housing. The
Canadian authority says, well, I'm sorry, we can't give you.
We can't give you new housing. This is your housing.
But if it's too much for you to bear, you know,
you can request physician assistant kill. Right. Oh man, oh
you believe that all? It's hard to believe that.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's hard to believe that that would be
a commune catered option to someone who is living in
poor housing.
Speaker 2: I mean, and then so when when privileged populations? And
to be clear, and in this populist moment, I think
this is really important to mention the overwhelming majority of
people who are pushing for this are not people who
can even imagine living in public housing. Right, they have
a totally different life. Right. Here's another here's another example.
A sixty six year old truck driver ended up in
the hospital and he needed because of his back, he
needed a special mattress. They were unable to get him
a special mattress. He developed a terrible bed sore, so bad,
like a bedstre unlike anything. The team that was taking
care of him quote unquote taking care of him because
should never lest somebody get a bedstor like that. No,
it was just incredibly painful. But he said he didn't
want to be a burden on folks, and he requested
and got assist to killing physician. Assistic killing has been
available in Canada for things like here, one person got
in and the only thing that was put on their
paper was hearing loss. There's a huge debate and it's
not clear what's going to come from this debate about
whether mental illness like depression or some other kind of
illness would be enough. And again back to this point
that it doesn't fit along typical right left conservative progressive lines.
The Toronto Star, which is the largest and most progressive
newspaper in Canada, described are you ready for this? They
describe all of this as hunger games, social Darwinism, and
they are right, and yeah, they are right. It is
our neighbors to the north have hunger games, social Darwinism
on full display, and nobody knows what to do about it,
because again, the case is not any principal case. It's
not based on any principle other than if you want
to kill yourself, you should be able to. And that's
produced a total disaster that is breathtaking.
Speaker 1: I mean it sounds to me. I think about Associate
Justice Potter Stewart, you know, describing obscenity. You know it
when you see it. That's sin, that is abject evil.
I know evil when I see it, And I think
that progressive newspaper in Canada surprisingly hit it right on
the head.
Speaker 2: This is just it is.
Speaker 1: It is sad and tragic on so many different levels.
It also speaks to I think two things in Canada.
It's assisted physician assisted killing system wholesale and also the
warnings of socialism to the United States of America because
they can't even get a mattress for this poor guy.
He's got such a bad bed sore because they can't
find him a mattress that they're suggesting that he kill
himself or that he has assistance killing himself. How how
much farther can we possibly go in dehumanizing life and
death in this world?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean this takes us full circle to the
beginning of the conversation. I think there is very little.
There's no place that we're going to be unafraid to
go if we lose the foundational theological values and assumptions here. Right.
You know, on the one hand, you might say, well,
what is who cares about a sixty six year old
truck driver who's bedridden and has this incredible bed story
as an agonizing pain and it goes all the way
down to his bone, and we have no idea how
to deal this, And maybe if he just wants out,
we should not deny him that. Right, you know, there
are are And by the way, we're now getting to
the point where, you know, the opinion in places like
in public opinion in places like Canada are are now
changed as a result of this. Only, like I said,
less than a decade. Listen to this. Eighteen to thirty
four year olds. Sixty percent of people in that eighteen
to thirty four year old range in Canada agreed that
physician assistic killing should be available simply because of disability.
Forty one percent forty one percent that it should be
available just on the basis of poverty alone. So if
you are just poor, forty one percent of eighteen to
thirty four year olds in Canada think physician assistic killing
should be available for you. Now, again, you don't get
to that depraved society unless you've really lost the plot
when it comes to what human dignity is all about. Right,
the poor are Christ to us? Right? Christ tells us
that poor person that's me, that marginalized person, that's me.
You don't help that person, you're refusing to help me.
You choose to help the person you are helping me.
And by the way, there's going to be an account
to given of how you did in this regard, right,
Matthew twenty five sheep in the goats, Right, And not
only are we not seeing Christ those folks, we consider
them to be totally disposable. And so again, and I
don't know what you think about this, but I'm sensing,
at least in Catholic world, I think also in some
other contexts. I don't know if it's too early to
call it a revival, but something very interesting happening with
young people. The percentage of people going to the highest
percentage of people going to mass every week, going to
church every week in Catholic world is Generation Z right
or Generation Alpha, and it's young people. And I have
a lot of hope about this because that's in my view. Again,
I'm open to change my mind about this, but from
where I sit, the only way out of this is
to rediscover theological under the theological grounding of human dignity,
which goes right down to our founding documents. Right our
founding documents in this country are explicit that we are
created equal right and endowed by our creator with our rights.
So it shouldn't be at all controversial to say that
theological understanding of human dignity is at the heart of
who we are as a nation. It is, it has been,
and it could be again. But until we're explicit about this,
until we say, hey, we explicitly need to recover these
theological foundations, it's hard to know where the bottom of
this is. I don't think we've certainly not reached the
bottom yet.
Speaker 1: Well, at least there is some encouragement because I feel
exactly the way you do. I do feel, and I've
felt this for the past years. There is a yearning.
There is a longing to move beyond the disposable in
our culture, in our Western society, to get back to
something foundational. There is a huge void missing in the
lives of so many people, particularly are young, because they
have been immersed in a movement in the United States
and Western cultures for a long time to move away
from the foundational, from the creator. And I think we
are in a world of hurt on so many levels,
particularly in our devaluing of human beings when it comes
to living, dying, and death in general. Thanks to my
guest today, Charlie Kemosi, author of Living and Dying Well,
a Catholic plan for resisting physician assisted killing. It is
available now and it should be available everywhere. It is
a fascinating look into where we stand today. You've been
listening to another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm
Matt Kittle, Senior Elections correspondent at the Federalist. We'll be
back soon with more. Until then, stay lovers of freedom
and anxious for the fray.