Assisted dying opponent proposes ways to engage culture

Aotearoa New Zealand is the 40th nation Amanda Achtman has visited as part of her work educating people on the topic. She works for Canadian Physicians for Life and in her own “Dying to Meet You” project.

In the podcast, she called for people in the Church to be “better spiritual and cultural entrepreneurs” in the face of a growing existential crisis about the meaning and value of life in the face of suffering and death.

She suggested several areas where conversations might be fruitful – such as asking people to name people they admire, or identify a favourite movie or book, or share about an intimate experience of communion with another.

These can open up conversations about what is “eminently human” including resilience, suffering, overcoming challenges and shared vulnerability.

“It is so important that we can translate the truths of our faith. If they are deep enough in our hearts and robust enough in our souls, they will find a resonance even with those people who lack faith, because Christ wants to meet them with his gaze of love, just as much as he has met us,” she explained.

Ms Achtman spoke about being raised as a Jewish Catholic, the importance of having a grandfather living with the family, learning about the Holocaust, the dehumanisation at the core of genocide and studying the life and thought of St John Paul II.

“Euthanasia is really quite literally the opposite of love,” she said.

Love says, “it is good you exist. I want you to be, you belong in the world. Whereas euthanasia says maybe you would be better off dead, maybe it is not so good for you to be here”.

“So, I realised that that mentality makes all of life more precarious, and eventually, step by step, that motivated me to get more involved in opposing the euthanasia expansion in my country.”

Ms Achtman spoke of the legalisation of “medical assistance in dying” (MAID) in Canada in 2016, in the wake of court rulings, and the subsequent expansion to cover more than those who are terminally ill. It now accounts for one in 20 deaths in Canada.

Once euthanasia is considered by some to be a reasonable and acceptable means to alleviate suffering, she said, “the logic of the ideology around euthanasia demands the expansion”.

Among other topics Ms Achtman touched on were interrogating the narrative of “choice”, the desensitisation of language and the troubling frequency of the elderly reading in obituaries about people they know dying by MAID.

She also reflected on the unspoken toll on family members who lose a loved one in this manner, including one heartbreaking story of a man who was led to choose the timing of his death before a family Christmas.

Ms Achtman mentioned speaking with young people and linking the topic of euthanasia with self-harm and notions of personal control, which can resonate with this demographic.

The interview with Ms Achtman concludes the first season of the Catholic Kiwi Podcast.

FULL STORY

Catholic Kiwi Podcast: Season 1, Episode 8 – Amanda Achtman (YouTube)