BY MARIA V. GALLAGHER | Special to LNP
Her body had been emaciated, but her spirit soared on. With all the strength she could muster, my mother gingerly walked across the rehabilitation center floor. I had never been prouder of her.
From an outsider’s point of view, the cancer seemed to be winning, but in that moment, my mother was victorious. She was dying, but she was not dead yet, and she planned to live for as long as she naturally could.
My mother embraced life because she saw it was inherently good — even with the oxygen tank that stood by her side …even though she was incontinent …even though she needed pain medication. She willed to live valiantly and heroically whatever days she had left. Her courageous example inspired her daughters, her sisters-in-law, and the physical therapists at the nursing facility where she spent her last days under hospice care.
She did not believe in a blanket right to doctor-prescribed suicide —and neither does the U.S. Supreme Court. The nation’s highest court ruled in 1997 that there is no constitutional right to so-called “assisted suicide,” upholding state bans on the practice.
Yet, the old Hemlock Society, now under the name “Compassion and Choices,” is trying to throw out long-standing, time-tested laws in Pennsylvania and across the country by legalizing doctor-prescribed suicide nationwide.
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Maria V. Gallagher is the legislative director of Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation, an advocacy organization in Harrisburg, PA
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