Bioethicist provides blueprint for combating the consumerist throwaway culture

On this continent and abroad, governments are increasingly debating, and often passing into law, a so-called “right to die.” This faux right is the permission for, and more often the subtle coercion of, an individual to apply for self-destruction. We who oppose assisted suicide on the grounds of religious belief must also turn to arguments of charity and reason to combat this alarming ideology. The notion that ending one’s life on one’s own terms is a good thing stems from a societal issue, the roots of which run deeper.

The key problem is not whether a person is given the choice to die the way he wants. The real problem is that many people walk through life caring only about themselves and caring little to nothing for others. As Aristotle might describe them, many modern relationships are ones of utility or pleasure. Once a person is no longer useful or pleasant to be around (or once the responsibilities in the relationship feel like too much), we often discard them. Discarding is something we should do with trash and recyclables, not human beings.

Yet, our society discards its own members constantly. What does that say about society?

When a mom finds out she is pregnant, a frequent response is one of dreading the responsibilities to come. An infant and a developing child will certainly need a lot of care and attention. Similarly, at the other end of the spectrum of this earthly life, when the aging and those who are dying need more personal care, they are often put out of their homes, distanced from their families, abandoned in nursing homes and other facilities. They are also viewed as a burdensome responsibility. Our culture has answers to these situations—answers including abortion and euthanasia, which undermine the basic human dignity of the most vulnerable among us. As a people, we have forgotten how to love. Or perhaps we simply do not wish to love because it costs us something.

Identifying and fighting the consumerist throwaway culture

This permeating attitude towards life is what moral theologian and bioethicist Charles Camosy calls our “consumerist throwaway culture,” borrowing the concept from the late Pope Francis. Many of us are familiar with Pope John Paul II’s haunting and equally lamentable words describing this as a “culture of death.” John Paul II likewise lamented the fact that many “people [are] relegated to the margins of society by consumerism and materialism.” He called on the Church “to commit itself all the more to the defense of the culture of life.” While it’s important to resist dangerous laws, we need to ignite a culture shift.

In his new book Living and Dying Well: A Catholic Plan for Resisting Physician-Assisted Killing, Camosy does more than bemoan realities; he offers a blueprint for the pro-life response that modern popes have highlighted as necessary. While advocates for MAiD (Medical Aid in Dying) in the states, Canada, and beyond avoid the term “physician-assisted suicide,” that has not stopped professional scientific journals like Oxford’s British Medical Bulletin from referring to such procedures under the label “physician-assisted suicide” and various synonyms and euphemisms.

While advocates of assisted suicide avoid the term for its bluntness and messiness, Camosy avoids it for a different reason: it doesn’t carry with it a full understanding of all the intricacies and details of many of the situations in which patients’ lives are abruptly ended. Proponents of assisted death legislation and much of the public perceive the moral dilemma at stake to be one of an individual’s autonomy and right to choose. Camosy opts for “physician-assisted killing” (or PAK), explaining that “the killing of the person is explicitly or structurally coerced, or both. The full agency of physicians in contributing to the killing of an innocent person should therefore be emphasized, rather than the compromised agency of those who are perhaps pushed to suicide.”

In Living and Dying Well, Camosy calls out the “twin idolatries” of playing God by taking one’s life on one’s own terms and of prolonging one’s life for as long as possible. He tells us also that there is a via media, a middle way or mean, between the two blanket statements “Death is bad” and “Death is good.” Context matters, and distinctions must be made. That is what Catholic philosophy (and any sound thinking) rightly demands.

Thus, a healthy look at the matter sees death as an event to avoid prematurely, but which must be prepared for and even welcomed at the proper time as a doorway to experiencing God in a new way. It is in death that we face judgment and, as we hope, gain heaven. Camosy even borrows St. Francis’s more personal image, “Sister Bodily Death,” that guest which each of us must entertain at some unknown point in the future. That encounter with death is not the end of our story. It’s a new development. Camosy reminds us why we are people of hope; even Jesus died, but He rose again. Because of His salvific act, “death has been defanged and defeated.”

The hypocrisy of the culture of death

The author proceeds to tell a few different kinds of stories. There are extant horror stories regarding PAK, and they often showcase the questionable extent of consent on the part of the victims. They show how different fears and a sense of loneliness infect the victims. There is the account of a woman with dementia requesting PAK and later, after being drugged, she began to resist the procedure; her doctor and her own family held her down in the process. Another tragedy comes from the longstanding availability of medically-assisted death in the Netherlands, which now permits PAK for children of all ages. These instances raise the question: Was it even possible for these victims of PAK to fully consent?

The consumerist throwaway culture is unsurprisingly hypocritical, as Camosy likes to point out the fact that the same society that openly approves of self-destruction often avoids thinking about death. As members of that society, we are all guilty of this mindset. There’s a touch of Leo Tolstoy’s Ivan Ilyich in each of us. In Tolstoy’s classic story, the eponymous character, as he lay dying, thinks:

That syllogism he had learned in Kiesewetter’s Logic: ‘Caius is a man; men are mortal; therefore Caius is mortal,’ had seemed to him, all his life, to be correct only for Caius, but not at all for himself.

We think that way too. Death is a tragedy that has come for others, even those I love. However, death is not on my agenda in the near future. Or so we think—and continue walking through life thinking! But that’s just not realistic. The proper remedy, Camosy says, is to keep death top of mind and prepare accordingly. The Christian tradition calls this memento mori, remembering our mortality, our inevitable death to this world. It is an ancient practice, one with a biblical precedent: “In whatever you do, remember your last days, and you will never sin” (Sirach 7:36).

In the book, we read stories about individuals and religious communities who live out memento mori and thus prepare themselves properly for “Sister Bodily Death.” We meet people living in community who, through their journey towards Heaven’s vestibule, allow others to love and care for these vulnerable individuals who bear the Face of Jesus in a special way. It takes humility to acknowledge dependence, not autonomy. Living in community (whether a religious one, within the family and the home, or within an assisted living facility) is what those nearing death need. People need people, a point the author stresses as more and more care homes for the aging enlist robots to interact with the residents.

Call to activism and practical steps

This book addresses an urgent phenomenon and calls for action on our part and on the part of the Church, of lawmakers, and of institutions. Families need to stop discarding those closest to them. We need to see the most vulnerable in society not as burdens but as opportunities to express charity, to touch the suffering flesh of Christ. Insurance and healthcare providers need to adapt to cover more in-home care options. Care homes need to be better staffed, which can be partially incentivized by paying caregivers just wages. The Church needs to do better at caring for patients suffering from dementia, an illness that is only expected to increase in the coming years. As a book that advocates for activism, Living and Dying Well becomes a work of activism. That’s not a bad thing. It just means there is work to do—in our hearts and souls, and in our laws and institutions.

This much is crucial: PAK has not yet been coded politically to be a right-wing or left-wing issue. That means that Catholics from both pro-life (typically seen as conservative) and social justice (typically viewed as liberal) standpoints need to find some common ground on this issue. Our faith should not polarize and divide us. It transcends political ties. United in our relationship with Christ, we must serve Him by defending the most vulnerable.

For all its emphasis on the theological underpinnings of human nature and dignity, the advice the book offers is also immensely practical. In it, Camosy offers tangible, specific steps we might take to live with our earthly deaths in mind and also build up a culture of life. Camosy shines through as an authority on the dangers of PAK and shows that he is keenly aware of the challenges faced by the Church at this time in history.

Like many of G. K. Chesterton’s commentaries, Camosy’s new work brings wisdom and common sense to bear on the important issues of our day. Because it is timely and urgent, it risks becoming quickly dated. Yet, what he gives us helps us respond right now, and the underlying verity that he draws upon remains ever new.

Living and Dying Well: A Catholic Plan for Resisting Physician-Assisted Killing
by Charles Camosy
Our Sunday Visitor, 2025
Paperback, 184 pages

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