There are times when we need to rethink received wisdom by subjecting our principles, codes, and traditions to a fresh exposure to real life experience. Sometimes ideals that are designed to protect and enhance life may actually degrade life and be the source of unnecessary suffering. So it is I believe with the prohibition of physician-assisted death under any and all circumstances. We can provide an opportunity for patients in certain extreme and rare cases under strictly regulated conditions to manage their dying without endangering our reverence for life. In so doing we can provide a way to be merciful to the dying without branding those who show mercy as criminals. We can avoid the agony of family members and of physicians who must do in secret what love and compassion urge upon them and thus serve the dying while honoring the living.
In many circumstances of the sort discussed here, human beings confront limits to their wisdom. We make decisions in the presence of objective uncertainty and conflicting values. Tragedy and ambiguity pervade the scene. No solutions are foolproof, infallible, or free from the possibility of abuse despite good intentions or because of ill intent. Sometimes every possible course of action makes us uneasy. We can continue to subject our own convictions to the scrutiny of others whose criticism we trust in the hope that deeper insight will dawn regarding what love bids us do for each other when life becomes a burden rather than a blessing. Meanwhile, our final recourse is to the mercy of God, who has pity on us pathetic, error-prone creatures.