SWITZERLAND – A patient will end his life using the sleek new suicide pod called Sarco this month in Switzerland. Dubbed the “Tesla of Euthanasia,” the makers of the pod could have stolen it right off of a sci-fi movie set. Created by the Swiss non-profit Exit International, Sarco is a 3D-printed pod inside of which the patient lays. The pod chamber is then flooded with nitrogen, leading to a “peaceful, even euphoric death” within 10 minutes. As an added embellishment, a quip by Carl Sagan has been printed on the pod’s side, “We are made of star stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.”
Sarco is convenient in at least two ways. First, the pod makes euthanasia far more accessible because it reduces the patient’s need for doctors or suicide-assistance organizations. Secondly, it also doubles as a coffin upon the patient's death. For these reasons, the Sarco is also an inexpensive way to commercialize assisted suicide.
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Switzerland is not the only country that has found economic value in commercializing euthanasia. Some claim Canada, with its overburdened healthcare system, will be able to breathe a sigh of relief as more of its citizens choose assisted suicide and take their last breath. The Canadian healthcare system often offers MAiD (Medical Assistance in Dying) as an alternative option when denying more expensive treatments to individuals. Some say euthanasia will lighten the financial burden on the healthcare system as more patients take advantage of MAiD. Medically assisted suicides account for 4.1% of deaths nationally, which makes MAiD the 5th leading cause of death in Canada.
But euthanasia is not the only way secularists are revolting against life. In America, the Democratic party held their national convention this past week. Alexis McGill Johnson, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood, was one of the speakers at the DNC. Speaking on abortion, Johnson proclaimed,
“We cannot call ourselves a free nation when women are not free….We trust women. We trust doctors. We trust Kamala. Our future is on the ballot. Our body is on the ballot.”
Outside of the convention, Planned Parenthood parked a bus in which they offered free abortions during the DNC. At least eight children were killed in their mobile health clinic this past week. Once finished with the procedures, volunteers gave hot dog coupons to those mothers who had just lost their babies to use at a nearby food stand.
Not only did Planned Parenthood offer free abortions—they provided free vasectomies as well. Some reports detailed how men traveled from across the country for their free snipping. Because leftist men believe abortion rights are not secure, some have neutered themselves to avoid the possibility of creating a new life with their sexual partners. After all, children would negatively affect the comfortable lives they have built for themselves. In this way, Planned Parenthood offered this type of man the chance to make an unholy pilgrimage to pay allegiance to the prevailing cultural mindset.
Besides euthanasia, abortion, and extreme birth prevention, Western education and culture incentivize neuterization through LGBTQ+, misogamy (hatred of marriage), no-fault divorce, and uncommitted sexual relationships. Birth rates have fallen precipitously, and economists predict that the West will face a significant population decline in the coming decades. Amid the falling birth rates, suicides have been on the rise since the late 1990s. The secularist revolt against life is in full swing.
It is apt that secularism, which has at its center the removal of the Life-giver from society, leads to so much death. If secularism cannot euthanize life, it will castrate it. If it cannot castrate life, it will devalue it through commercialization.
The moment the West dissociated itself from Christianity, its culture was doomed to rot. The vibrancy and beauty of its petals may remain for a time, but the grave has awaited the flower’s corpse from the moment it was pruned. All that will be left is a stem of thorns unless the West reunites itself with its roots. Will Herberg put it well,
“The attempt made in recent decades by secularist thinkers to disengage the moral principles of Western civilization from their scripturally based religious context, in the assurance that they could live a life of their own as ‘humanistic’ ethics, has resulted in our ‘cut flower culture.’ Cut flowers retain their original beauty and fragrance, but only so long as they retain the vitality that they have drawn from their now-severed roots; after that is exhausted, they wither and die. So with freedom, brotherhood, justice, and personal dignity—the values that form the moral foundation of our civilization. Without the life-giving power of the faith out of which they have sprung, they possess neither meaning nor vitality.”1
When Nietzsche announced, “God is dead…And we have killed him.” he did not mean it in a triumphalist sense. Nietzsche realized that the secular humanist philosophy he espoused and its removal of God as a moral authority could have dire consequences. Strangely, the so-called death of God and the disconnection of the Church from cultural morality have not led to the death of Christianity but to the suicide of secular humanism. The result is a secularist West that is quite literally killing itself.
Secularism is dead. And it has killed itself.
The Church has understood for ages that the only foundation that can produce a society that values life as it ought is the Christian tradition. Barsanuphius and John were two ascetic elders who lived in a monastery near modern-day Gaza. They wrote many letters to those needing spiritual direction during the early sixth century. One brother who received their counsel replied eloquently to Barsanuphius,
“Let us pray to the Lord day and night in order that we may not be separated from our holy fathers either in this age or in the age to come. Where would we go? What more could we find? Where else might we be received? Let us not leave the light and seek the darkness; let us not leave the sweetness of honey and accept the bitterness of the serpent. Let us not be envious of one another and love death; let us not hate life, let us not receive curses instead of blessings, let us not anger Christ or serve the enemy [emphasis mine]. Let us become vigilant, alert, swift, prepared. Let us awaken from our deep sleep; let us understand what God has bestowed upon us in order that we should be under the feet of his holy servants. Why do I even say ‘under the feet’? We are actually their children and fellow heirs.”2
The writer connects the duty of loving life with our submission to the holy fathers. The holy fathers are those Church leaders, dead and alive, who follow the same scripture and Church tradition. To submit oneself to Christ and His Church is to love life. This act of self-denial goes against the modern notion of unrestrained personal freedom. Yet, Christlike submission is the only thing that truly sets men free: “let us understand what God has bestowed upon us in order that we should be under the feet of his holy servants. Why do I even say ‘under the feet’? We are actually their children and fellow heirs.”
The Christian tradition naturally lends itself to life. The Church rejects euthanasia, abortion, and other barbarities. Studies show that only the deeply religious, including Christians, are having children at the replacement level. And Christians, compared to atheists, are more likely to have lifetime marriages and less likely to commit suicide.
Christianity will endure long after some philosophy replaces secular humanism as the new culturally accepted worldview. Until then, parents and presbyters must lovingly catechize their families and flocks, connecting them to scripture and their ancient roots, lest secularism devours more of Christ’s precious sheep. Secularism grows through persuasion rather than reproduction, which it opposes, and is only as strong as the Church and her families are weak.
Will Herberg, Judaism and Modern Man: An Interpretation of Jewish Religion (United States: Jewish Lights Pub., 1997), 91-92.
Barsanuphius and John, Letters from the Desert: A Selection of Questions and Responses, ed. John Behr, trans. John Chryssavgis, Popular Patristics Series (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2003), 95–96.
That statistic about MAiD as the 5th leading cause of death in Canada is incredible.
Sir, I do not know you—but this article was as arresting and profound as if you, yourself, were an early church father. Your points are so clearly and eloquently put with prophetic precision and scholarly finesse. As I read it, I thought this is exactly how I want to sound to my leftist professors and classmates!
Thank you 🙌🏿💯♥️