Recently, however, the debate over physician-assisted suicide has been causing a stir in our society and raises, above all, the question of the meaning of life and the meaning of suffering. British journalist Katie Engelhart investigates in detail why people choose assisted suicide in her book "The Inevitable". Various reasons are presented, including the limitations of modern medicine, aging, and physical and mental suffering. But the final reason presented is 'freedom'. People believe that their lives are dignified and meaningful when they can freely choose their own life and death.
Viktor Frankl also emphasized human freedom. However, Frankl's concept of freedom was not the freedom to end a painful life. Even in the horrific Nazi concentration camps, he tried to find meaning in his life and always remembered human dignity. And he survived. Although the dreadful suffering of the concentration camps was unavoidable, he did not lose the fact that his life held meaning even within that suffering.
Conversely, when people believe that their freedom is realized through assisted suicide, neither the unchanging value of life nor the meaning of life can exist. When life itself is considered meaningless, suffering becomes something that must be avoided at all costs, and a painful life becomes something to end as quickly as possible.
Christianity does not teach that suffering is valuable in itself. Suffering serves as a warning light that helps us avoid harmful things. Because we tend to avoid suffering, we can maintain our physical and mental health. The development of medicine has also been directed toward freeing humans from much suffering. However, Pope John Paul II states in paragraph 23 of the encyclical "Evangelium Vitae" the following: “Suffering, which is an unavoidable burden of human existence and at the same time a necessary element for personal growth, is 'deleted' and rejected as unnecessary, and in practice is always opposed as an evil to be avoided.” Suffering is not only a warning light that protects our life and health, but also an element necessary for the growth of each of our personalities. In fact, the human growth process is a continuous series of sufferings, because human life is a journey of constantly solving problems. Becoming an adult means enduring the suffering of taking on responsibilities. Conversely, as Carl Jung mentioned, “Neurosis is the result of avoiding the suffering that one should rightly experience.”
What about the suffering at the end of life? None of us can avoid suffering at the end of life. However, it is our choice to decide our attitude toward that suffering. Accepting the suffering at the end of life simultaneously means rejecting acts such as euthanasia or assisted suicide. In other words, it testifies that human life possesses an inviolable value even amid illness and suffering. And such an attitude is not unrelated to hope for life after death. “Beyond all human consolation, no one can overlook the great help that faith in God and hope for eternal life give to the dying and their families.” The suffering at the end of life may perhaps be like the labor pains for being born into a new life.
