Ep. 157: Is Assisted Suicide Okay? Stephanie Gray Pt. 2

Kourtney Cromwell:
Hey, everyone. This week on the show, Ryan welcomes Stephanie Gray, and they open the dialogue on assisted suicide and discuss the flaws of valuing one life over another.

Stephanie Gray:
Despair is suffering without meaning, so someone who despairs is likely to commit suicide, but someone who isn’t despairing isn’t going to commit suicide. The common factor both individuals have is an experience of suffering. A person who doesn’t despair still suffers. A person who does despair suffers. Whether you despair in the experience of suffering is entirely dependent on whether you find meaning in your situation.

Ryan McCurdy:
Hey, my name is Ryan. Welcome to another episode of indoubt. Today we have another important conversation with Stephanie Gray around the topic of medically assisted suicide, which is a relatively new law in Canada. Like abortion, our perspective on assisted suicide deeply influences how we view ourselves as humans; deeply influences how we view others, our neighbour and our friend; deeply influences how we view the sovereignty and the goodness of God in creating human beings.
How are Christians meant to respond to medically assisted suicide? If we believe that every individual is made in God’s image, this is an important question for us to ask. In this episode, Stephanie Gray helps us understand how to think and respond to this new law in our country on medically assisted suicide.

Ryan McCurdy:
Well, today, we have a very special guest with us, that we’ve had on recently. Her name is Stephanie Gray, and she is a pro-life advocate. That includes abortion, but what we’re also going to be talking about today is we’re going to be looking at assisted suicide, which is a very new thing in Canada, for the most part. Stephanie, thank you for being on. Great to have you here with us. It’s a joy.

Stephanie Gray:
Thank you. I’m glad to be back.

Ryan McCurdy:
Assisted suicide is something that hasn’t been around for a very long time. Could you maybe tell us a little bit about the history of assisted suicide and, maybe for our listeners who don’t know exactly what it is, what is assisted suicide?

Stephanie Gray:
Sure. It was illegal to do assisted suicide in Canada until a couple years ago, where the Supreme Court threw out our law on assisted suicide and basically told our elected representatives that they needed to come up with a new law that allowed for some assisted suicide, which is what’s happened. Now, people can apply for what’s called Medical Assistance In Dying, or MAID, for short. I am using the term to identify what we’re hearing about in the public, but I actually don’t use the term normally, because I think it minimizes the gravity of what’s going on. Medical assistance in dying sounds totally acceptable, but the reality of what we’re talking about is suicide with assistance.
Someone, who basically perhaps is so sick, maybe they’re paralyzed and they’re near death, but they are not capable of putting a pill in their hand and swallowing it, so they need someone to help them, but they are saying, “I want to end my life, but I want you to assist me in executing the act, if I, myself, am not capable of doing it.” It’s getting assistance with the end result of doing what suicide itself would do, which is to end your life. There’s already an effort to broaden the law to make it something that more and more people can ask for and actually have done. That’s what’s going on. My big focus is to help people think through the issue from a perspective that upholds the dignity of all persons and respects human life, not taking away the gift of life that God has given us, before God Himself would have our lives end.

Ryan McCurdy:
Mm-hmm (affirmative), I think that’s an important distinction, that life is a gift. Life is difficult, but life is a gift. There’s a passage in the Book of Ecclesiastes where it says, “It’s better to be a live dog than a dead lion.”

Stephanie Gray:
Yes.

Ryan McCurdy:
It’s better to be alive than to be dead, you know?

Stephanie Gray:
Yes, yeah.

Ryan McCurdy:
That piece, even for me, stands out of, yeah, life is beautiful.

Stephanie Gray:
We know, even from Deuteronomy, “I set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life then, so that you and your descendants may live,” this focus on God is a God of life. Death came as a result of our sin, but we were meant to be living.

Ryan McCurdy:
Yeah, yeah, I find this fascinating, assisted suicide. For thousands of years, billions of people have been avoiding death at all costs.

Stephanie Gray:
Right.

Ryan McCurdy:
What’s changed? Why, all of a sudden, are we saying, “Yeah, that’s okay. Take it at your own decision.” What is going on? What is the change? What do you see, maybe, in culture? What’s the landscape look like, where you’re thinking why are these people … Why are the laws changing in the way that they have been?

Stephanie Gray:
I think we’re a culture that is hyperfocused on control, and a culture that’s hyperfocused on rugged individualism. When you are sick, and when you are dying, you lose control over a lot of things, and you can no longer be the strong, independent individual. You need others. Because people don’t like needing others, they want to think, “I’m independent. I’m strong. I can take care of myself,” it’s hard. It takes a humility. It takes a vulnerability to say, “I need you to feed me. I can’t feed myself. I need you to change me. I can’t toilet myself.” Those are huge things that are profoundly difficult for adults.
I mean, we’re fine doing that for children, because they’re not as aware of everything, but it takes a profound vulnerability to allow ourselves to be taken care of in a very intimate way, vulnerable way, by another. Yet, when we do allow another to do that, we’re actually teaching them, through our vulnerability, what it means to love. We’re providing them an opportunity to step outside of themselves and care for another.
It’s interesting, in the assisted suicide debate, people will talk about dignity and a loss of dignity. I often think of an analogy to some priceless piece of art. If it was hidden away and not discovered for many decades, and suddenly people come upon it in an attic, and it’s covered in dust, but we know it’s a priceless piece of art, would we say the art has lost its worth, because it’s covered in dust and cobwebs, or would we bring in a specialist, who knows how to restore art, to remove the dust, remove the cobwebs, and say, “This is so valuable and so priceless, I need to treat it in a way that reflects the value?” That’s what we would do. We’d remove the dust, remove the cobwebs.
When someone is sick and dying, they’re soiling themselves, they can’t feed themselves, they’re drooling, whatever the case may be, they’ve not lost their dignity. They still have their dignity. If we leave them to sit in a soiled bed, if we leave them with drool, without wiping it, then the response should not be to eliminate them but to make them clean, to wipe their face, to … Whatever the case may be, to say, “No, by my action towards you, I want to restore the dignity that is already there, but by my action is showing I recognize that in a deeper way.”

Ryan McCurdy:
Yeah, these laws reflect a lot about us. Again, with somebody maybe who’s a senior or elderly, and they can’t care for themselves, or maybe they have cognitive disabilities, where they can’t take care of themselves, how does this impact how we view the value of the individual? This painting, you’re saying, is valuable, underneath all of the challenges and the difficult. Yeah, what do you see with that?

Stephanie Gray:
People, I would say, again, not only are we focused on control and individualism, but we’re focused on accomplishment and success, so that when someone who is sick, elderly, disabled, and can’t do what they once did, or can’t do what others can do, there’s this attitude of they shouldn’t be because they can’t do. One of my favourite ads was put out years ago on a billboard by the Canadian Down Syndrome Society. It had a picture of a little girl with Down Syndrome. The caption simply was, “Celebrate being.”
I love that idea, that first and foremost, we’re human beings, not human doings, and we ought to celebrate that we are. Although we like to be useful, although we don’t want to be a burden, our dignity and value is not in our usefulness. It’s not in our usefulness. It’s in our nature. Our value is in our nature, our essence as human beings, and we’re made for relationship. If you look at humans imaging God, what is God? God is a Trinity, the Father, Son, the Holy Spirit. He’s a communion of persons. In imaging God, we also are meant to image the relationship that God is, that we’re more than ourselves.
When we are vulnerable, we need others. We’re actually really magnifying the image of God, being in relationship. I think of an amazing program in Washington State at a care home called The Mount. There’s a great quote by one of the care home workers, who says, “We all have common needs: to be recognized, to be loved, and to have someone to share life with.” We don’t need to be successful. We don’t need to be in control, but we do need to be loved, to be recognized, and to have someone to share life with. That we can always accomplish. No matter what someone’s situation, we can accomplish those three things.

Ryan McCurdy:
Mm-hmm (affirmative), and I think that’s a challenge for us in North America, where we’re such an individualistic world. In your experience of understanding assisted suicide and researching and getting into all the knowledge, what are some of the effects that take place on the community of that person, or their family system, their family unit, that are consequences of their decision to go through with suicide or assisted suicide?

Stephanie Gray:
Well, you know, I think we can even just look at suicide to see. Well then, you’re going to have people that carry on living, who thinks, “What could I have done differently?” Then they’re going to, rightly or wrongly, and it could be wrongly, but they’re going to be left wondering, “Did I not do enough? How could I have helped my loved one more?”
When we look at suicide, we consider that a profound tragedy, and we see the negative effects that has on many people in communities and families, so why, when we throw the word assisted in front of suicide, do we suddenly think it’s okay? I remember when I was in elementary and high school, we were always taught, “Respect your friends’ secrets, unless they’re going to hurt themselves. If a friend tells you they’re going to commit suicide, you tell a parent, you tell a teacher because we want to help them.”
Yet, if you’re a patient in a hospital, and someone says, “I want assisted suicide,” now we take that seriously, as opposed to trying to stop it. I think, yeah, there’s going to be effects where you also have people that are guilted into asking for assisted suicide, because their neighbour asked for it, and their neighbour got it, and they think, “Well, they’re not a burden on their family, but I feel like I’m a burden on my family. What’s the point of me continuing to live?” You’re going to have almost copycat situations, where other vulnerable people ask for something that, deep down, they don’t want, but they’re influenced by the choice of another because the reality is no man is an island. We’re impacted by decisions that other people make.
When someone makes that decision, it has negative results, but when someone makes a life-affirming decision, it has positive effects. The example I think of is of a young teenager in Texas that was in a car accident, became a quadriplegic, and this is how she spent her days. She would watch the news, read the news, listen to the news, and whenever she came across a story of someone who was going through a difficult time, they were suffering, they were going through a hardship, she would call for an assistant, who would come and place a little stick in her mouth. Then she used the stick to pound out letters on a keyboard, in order to write notes of encouragement to people she read about in the news.
Now, that young teenager lived a life of profound meaning, even though she was a quadriplegic because she looked at her suffering as an opportunity to find meaning, as an opportunity to empathize with and relate to others. If she looked at her suffering and just committed suicide, then all the people that she has helped through her notes of encouragement would never be helped, and would they, perhaps end their lives because they felt despair?
Because, in her suffering, she said, “What good can come from this? How can I help others through this very terrible situation that I’ve been in?” she’s now turning her situation into something that becomes redeemed, in a sense. I think that’s what we need to do is we need to help people see that, because we impact people by our choices, let’s make positive choices rather than negative ones in the suffering that we face.

Ryan McCurdy:
Mm-hmm (affirmative), and I’m curious. Are there any recorded attempts of assisted suicide by able-bodied, fully healthy young men and women, who are maybe in their 20s, 30s, 40s, who aren’t maybe having disabilities or haven’t been in injuries, where their life altered in a drastic way? What would the laws be regarding that, if you or I said, “Let’s go to the hospital right now and just ask for assisted suicide”? What would be-

Stephanie Gray:
Right.

Ryan McCurdy:
What would be-

Stephanie Gray:
Right now in Canada that wouldn’t be allowed, but already we’re seeing in countries, like in Europe, some European countries where assisted suicide and euthanasia have been legal for years, where more and more people that aren’t necessarily at the end of their life are saying they want assisted suicide, because they think they’ve just lived a full life, or they think their life isn’t worth living anymore, because of this or that difficult thing that has happened to them. This is the concern, that what’s going to happen in Canada is we’re going to become more and more like some of those countries in Europe, like Holland or Belgium.
There’s an organization called the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, which has released two documentaries so far, exposing how extreme an assisted suicide mindset is getting in these other countries, to point out that we should be very concerned that that’s going to happen here. I think, in response, what we really need to do is what I often try to do in my talks, which is help people understand the philosophy of a Holocaust survivor, by the name of Dr. Viktor Frankl. He’s one of my favourite authors. He wrote a book called Man’s Search for Meaning, in which he writes a lot about suffering, suffering in the first half of his book that he lived through by being in the concentration camps in the Second World War. The second half of his book, because he was a psychiatrist, is about his theories in psychology, where he shares different stories of patients of his, who had gone through profound suffering.
One of Dr. Frankl’s insights is that the last of the human freedoms that can’t be taken from us is the freedom to choose how to respond to the situation that we’re in. His whole philosophy is that, no matter how difficult our suffering, how difficult our circumstance, that in knowing we can choose how we respond, then we can choose a positive, not a negative, response. One of his other insights that I often use in my talks on assisted suicide is he says, “Despair is suffering without meaning.” Someone who despairs is likely to commit suicide. Someone who isn’t despairing isn’t going to commit suicide, but the common factor both individuals have is an experience of suffering. A person who doesn’t despair still suffers. A person who does despair suffers, but whether you despair in the experience of suffering is entirely dependent on whether you find meaning in your situation.
His insight is if you can find meaning in your suffering, you won’t despair. If you don’t find meaning, you will despair. The example of the teenager in Texas that I just gave you, who became a quadriplegic, is an example of someone who found meaning in her suffering, so she didn’t kill herself.
Another example I think of is two young men from England, one by the name of Dan James, the other one by the name of Matt Hampson. Both these young men were hurt in rugby accidents and became paralyzed. Dan became paralyzed from the chest down. Matt became paralyzed from the neck down. It was more severe. He requires the use of a ventilator. Dan isn’t alive today, because he travelled from England to a clinic in Switzerland, where he got assisted suicide. Matt, on the other hand, is thriving. He volunteers with children. He raises money for spinal cord research. He is a motivational speaker and a writer.
Now, both Dan and Matt suffered in a very similar way. They became paralyzed. They could no longer do the things they loved, such as playing rugby, but Dan despaired and Matt didn’t. Why? Because Dan found no meaning in his suffering, but Matt did. What I really believe we need to do, in a culture that has not only embraced assisted suicide but wants to expand assisted suicide access to situations that are far more extreme than what are already allowed, which is a problem… We need to help people find meaning in their suffering, because I can’t eliminate suffering; I’m not God, but I can help people find meaning. Matt Hampson is proof of that. This Texas teenager is proof of that. Dr. Frankl is proof of that. We need to help others do that.

Ryan McCurdy:
Mm-hmm (affirmative), and that’s one of the challenges in a pleasure-centred society, which is if I want to live and have a good life, it’s going to be because I’m comfortable. I travel. I go to the warm places in the winter months. I have good food all the time. I’ve got… I’m dressed well. I have all that I need. What I think we are getting to, as a society, is recognizing that these things aren’t enough. These superficial pieces do not provide enough meaning, because when the suffering comes, I just want to quit.

Stephanie Gray:
Right, which is why I think it’s so important we be able to distinguish pleasure from happiness, because yeah, when you’re really cold, and then you leave the winter, and you go to a hot climate like Hawaii, which is my favourite place on earth, you’re going to experience pleasure. While pleasure isn’t necessarily bad, it’s nice to experience a pleasurable experience and have a great vacation, at the end of the day, we are most fulfilled when we’re happy. You can be happy, but not always experience pleasure.
You can be sick and have cancer, but be happy. Why? Because you have family around you, and because your family has slowed down to the point that you’re actually spending more time with each other rather than, perhaps, on devices, because you think, well, I have less time left with this individual, so I want to prioritize connection. Because you’ve done that which we humans are made for, you’re actually going to be, perhaps, riddled with cancer, but be happy because you have what we’re made for, which is connection and relationships. I think the key is that what makes humans thrive is relationship with others, which is something that can be achieved, even if pleasurable moments can’t always happen, like a great vacation or travelling the world, in general, or all kinds of different things.

Ryan McCurdy:
Mm-hmm (affirmative), and finding purpose is important. This is where Jesus invites every believer, every person, to follow Him and says, “Hey, actually give up your life, and I will give you true life.”

Stephanie Gray:
Right.

Ryan McCurdy:
“I will give you purpose. I will give you meaning. I will open your eyes to the opportunity to join Me in the mission of bringing Good News and making all things new.” I think that’s an invitation that is worth considering, right?

Stephanie Gray:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Ryan McCurdy:
An invitation to consider, my life could be about more than just me.

Stephanie Gray:
Right.

Ryan McCurdy:
My life could have purpose and impact. This conversation of assisted suicide gets to the heart of what are we about, as humans?

Stephanie Gray:
Yes, yes, and what are we about as Christians? There’s that great little short book called On the Christian Meaning of Human Suffering. My favourite quote from it is this: “Suffering unleashes love. Suffering unleashes love.” If you think about it, when do we step outside of ourselves? It’s when we see someone around us who’s suffering or struggling or weak or vulnerable, and we think they need help. It’s their suffering that unleashes our love. As my ministry is called then, Love Unleashes Life, that when someone experiences love, they experience that they are cared for, for who they are, it gives a whole new perspective on their situation, and it unleashes life. It can unleash it figuratively or literally.
If someone’s faced with an unplanned pregnancy, for example, their suffering can unleash the love of a pregnancy care center, which unleashes the physical life of the child, who’s cared for. It can also, when we’re loved, unleash life, just our spirits are higher. If you think about it, when someone is suffering, they’re sick, they’re disabled, if we use that as an opportunity to love, then that gives them the figurative life that they need, the encouragement to go on, to live through their days satisfied because they’re connected with others, but the idea that suffering unleashes love, and love unleashes life, is the heart of the Gospel message, that we sinned, through Adam and Eve, the original sin, which separated us from God.
Now, in being separated from God, we’re suffering. God saw that and said, “I’m going to unleash my love. I’m going to send My only Son, Who will come into the world, Who will suffer, die, and rise, so that” — what? — “you can have eternal life.” That’s the Gospel message. We suffer. It unleashes God’s love through Christ, which then gives us the path to eternal life. That’s really what we want to communicate to people.

Ryan McCurdy:
Yeah, it’s a beautiful message, and so maybe somebody’s listening to this and is like, “Okay, this is a great starting point for me. This conversation has started some thoughts and some questions in my own mind. What else do you have? How can I continue growing in my understanding, as I think of the morals and the ethics of this topic of assisted suicide?” Are there any resources you could direct some people to?

Stephanie Gray:
Yes, one of my favourite books right now on the topic is one that my former colleagues, Jonathon Van Maren and Blaise Alleyne, have written, called Discussing Assisted Suicide. It’s a short, easy to read book. This also comes from a nonsectarian perspective, so that, as Christians, if we’re speaking to people who aren’t Christian, we can nonetheless convince them that assisted suicide ought to be rejected.
I wrote a book review on it, where there’s a link to where people can order the book. If people just go to my website, loveunleasheslife.com, go to the blog, you can see my review on their book. I would say, in brief, the key question they bring to the debate is this: They say, who gets suicide assistance and who gets suicide prevention?
They say, for example, if someone’s about to jump off a bridge, how do you decide whether you push them off or pull them back? They’ll say, if you start talking to the person, and you find out they’re depressed, they’re spouse left them, they’re overwhelmed, they don’t have work, we often think, “Oh my goodness, let’s pull them back. Let’s get them help and resources.” If someone says, “Well, I’m 80. I have cancer. The chemo’s not working. I’m just tired. I’m going to die anyways, so I want assisted suicide,” we maybe not literally would push them off the bridge, but if we would give them assisted suicide, it’s as though we were pushing them off the bridge.
Why would we assist one suicide but prevent another? People often say, “Well, we assist suicide, because we support choice, that if someone chooses it, and they want it, I have to respect their autonomy.” Then I would say, “Well, wait a minute,” and this is what they say in the book. If I will say it’s about choice, but I will stop someone from killing themselves, like the person whose spouse left them, and I say, “No, you can’t kill yourself,” if it was really about choice, I would support them in killing themselves.
If I pull back some people from killing themselves, then as much as I say it’s about choice, it’s actually not. It’s about judgment. It’s about me judging your life is not worth saving, in one case; hmm, your life is worth saving, in another case. Although I’ll say it’s about choice, it’s actually, at the end of the day, about judgment, and who are we to judge that’s not a life worth saving… well, that is? If we believe in equality, then everyone should get suicide prevention, rather than an unequal situation, where some get the benefit of suicide prevention, but other people are going to get suicide assistance. They unpack their arguments in greater detail. At loveunleasheslife.com, people can see the review of the book by Jonathon Van Maren and Blaise Alleyne, discussing assisted suicide. The other resource that comes to mind is the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, which has produced two excellent documentaries. If you want to watch something, rather than read something, people can get that by going to the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.

Ryan McCurdy:
What are some things that maybe we’re not thinking of, so far?

Stephanie Gray:
You know what? I have seen the transformative power of music when it comes to people who are sick and suffering. There’s an excellent documentary I highly recommend called, ‘Alive Inside.’ It’s about a man, who was a retired social worker, who was going to care homes and seeing sick, elderly people slumped in their wheelchairs, who essentially looked dead. They weren’t aware of themselves or where they were. There wasn’t much interaction with their environment, but he knew the power of music, and so he started to interview their families and find out what music they listened to when they were in their late teens and early 20s. Then he created a musical score, a playlist, rather, of the types of music each different patient had known, as a young person.
Then he’d put earphones on them and play their music. These people came alive. The person who was slumped over sat up straight and started to sing songs that they’d heard decades before, word for word. They didn’t know who their children were. They didn’t know where they were living, but they remember the words to songs. That’s something that tells me that, when it comes to assisted suicide, if people are out of it, and they seem dead inside, rather than alive inside, the solution is not assisted suicide. The solution is let’s get creative. Let’s use our imagination. How can, for example, music be a tool to provide life and encouragement and beautiful moments for people in these situations?
I have experienced this in my own life, where I volunteer, and I play my ukulele for patients who are sick, including some patients who have dementia. I have seen the truth of this man’s research when I pull out my ukulele and I start strumming, “You are my sunshine,” and then the person with dementia starts singing along, “My only sunshine.” I see them come alive and also remember things when there are so many other things they can’t remember. I just think it’s so important that we get creative and ask ourselves, “How can I use my gifts and my talents to better someone else’s life so that they don’t even ask for assisted suicide because they want to live a full life until life naturally ends?”

Ryan McCurdy:
Well, life is a gift, and it’s a gift worth fighting for. Stephanie, thank you for being on with us today and helping us navigate this conversation. It was a pleasure to have you.

Stephanie Gray:
Oh, well, thank you. It was a joy to be here.

Ryan McCurdy:
Thank you for joining us on this episode of indoubt with Stephanie Gray. These conversations that we’ve had with Stephanie are really important for us, as Christians, to participate in, especially with a Biblical perspective. Jesus modelled how to interact with others and how to value people who have different perspectives than us. Be sure, as you continue to have these conversations, to have them in a loving, grace- and truth-filled way. Don’t forget, for more resources, you can follow Stephanie Gray and the ministry of Love Unleashes Life at loveunleasheslife.com.

Ryan McCurdy:
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