On Dying
by Aemilia Scott

The freedom to die. It is the greatest and most awful aspect of our free will. Aristotle saw men as being greater than animals because of our will to freedom and perfection. But Aristotle also saw men as less than angels because we often choose that which is not in our best interest. If men were angels, a very old and important American once said, there would be no need for government. But because men are not angels, we have a strong government with a legislative branch that has recently taken upon itself to legislate the most personal freedom.

This issue, like most others dealing with the Great Questions, will stay unanswered because each side uses a different language to argue what it believes to be a fundamental truth. Those who believed that Terri Schiavo had a right to die cited medical evidence and her own personal testimony about her disgust with remaining in a vegetative state.

Those who believed that Terri Schiavo should remain alive stated that all life is sacred, and a higher moral power (be it God or a Natural Law or what-have-you) dictates that life is better than non-life.

The problem with such fundamental moral arguments is that often both sides are right. Life is probably better than non-life. And living in a hospital bed with no brain function is probably the most inhumane fate to be thrust on a person. This is called a great question, and this is why philosophy classes are still interesting after 3,000 years.

There is an unarguable point, and it is unarguable because it is about law, and uses the language of law, and those who made a fuss about Schiavo were lawmakers. Congress cannot pass Bills of Attainder. That is, it cannot pass a bill that denies the rights of an individual person, because this would be tantamount to interpreting law like a judge.

That is the job of the judicial branch, and separation of powers dictates that each branch must stay out of the beeswax of the others. In this respect, the legislative bacchanal that surrounded the Schiavo case was an abuse of power on the part of ideologues with holy axes to grind.

The most interesting element of this push in the House to keep Schiavo alive was that those representatives pushing through these Bills of Attainder felt that her cause was so important it superseded the normal process of government. This was an issue of morality, of life, of God. And these things were worth bending the rules for. Or rather, these battles are fought on the cosmic plane of good and evil, and the rules of an earthly Congress are immaterial to the fight. Essentially, these are government officials who didn't believe in the power of the government to do the right thing.

The legislators who tried to keep Schiavo alive didn't have a political leg to stand on, nor did they have a personal leg as friends of the Schiavo family. But they did have a large, meaty theological leg upon which they stood, and they have been working this leg out for the past 10 years just waiting for the chance to jog it around Capitol Hill.

But Fundamentalist Christian legislators with theological legs never remember that men are not angels. Men are not angels. Some men may act a whole lot like angels, but in fact they are not angels. Calvinists got all bent out of shape because they went around declaring themselves destined to go to heaven, and thus any horrible thing they did was justified as it was on the path to their fate in heaven. Protestants got even more bent out of shape when they decided that they knew who was good, and who was in league with the devil, and they took it upon themselves to kill that latter group in all sorts of horrible ways. And let's not forget the Catholics, because for the Holy and Apostolic See, when the going gets tough, the tough burn heretics.

Men. Are. Not. Angels.

In fact, Christ tells us to "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and render unto God that which is God's" which means that Congress (Caesar), should not sit in judgment over one's personal choices (God).

The deeper theological point is that because men are not angels, they make senseless and horrible and inexplicable choices for themselves. One of these choices is to die. Suicide is the ultimate gift of free will, and free will is God's special gift to humans.

About 1,650 years ago, St. Augustine laid it out for the Roman citizenry like this: once upon a time, Adam and Eve lived in a state of harmony with God's will. That is, their souls were an unblemished representation of the will of God, and thus everything they did was right, and in fact everything they wanted to do was right. In Eden, nobody would wish to die. Then Eve pissed off God, and Adam and Eve were kicked out of Eden, and now I have cramps and everybody's workin' for the weekend. The End. This is what is theologians call "The Fall." As a result of the Fall our will and our desire are separate, and thus the gift of free will becomes the curse of free will.

In this scenario it must follow that there is one best choice to make, the one choice that is closest to the divine will. If this is the case then everything else is a deviation from the divine will, and everything else must be a result of human choice and not the imprint of God on our soul.

If we all acted according to that imprint, everyone would make the same choice. Thus every act of freedom a human can make is a falling away from the will of God. Every act of freedom is a fall. And the ultimate act of freedom from God's will is choosing one's own death.

For those who believe in God, the most important point other than God's sheer existence is the free will given by God to humans, and thus our freedom to sin.

Without freedom to sin, we would not be able to freely choose God. Choosing death is the most unfathomable and horrifying act of free will a human can make short of directly harming others, but it is a leap that humans do make, and a leap made with that damn theological leg given to us by God.

It's crazy, but human freedom, whether it's Ghandi's hunger strike or Keith Richards' coke binge, is all part of the plan. If legislators want to act on behalf of God they should act when our choices begin to infringe upon the freedoms of others, but not limit this personal freedom given to us by the God they love to speak for. They can preach every Sunday, they can pray every night, they can have breakfast every day on the 700 Club if they want to.

But if legislators want to act on behalf of God, they should not be allowed to use the tools of Caesar.

E-mail Aemilia Scott at aemilia at gmail dot com.

— graphic by Benjamin Chandler (blchandler at sbcglobal dot net)