The Life Challenges Podcast
The Life Challenges Podcast
Dealing With the Culture of Death
Join us as we confront the unsettling rise of the "culture of death." In this episode we explore the nuanced debate surrounding physician-free euthanasia as we spotlight the Sarco pod's chilling promise of a "peaceful" end. We cast a critical eye on the removal of protective barriers in the euthanasia process, questioning whether this aligns with the harsh realities of assisted suicide. We dissect the ethical and moral quandaries of this chilling innovation. These pods, with their potential AI-driven capabilities and cutting-edge 3D printing processes, raise critical questions about the normalization of self-termination and its implications on societal values and personal ethics. We trace the path from historical execution methods to the evolving acceptance of such technologies, urging you to reflect on the profound transformation of cultural attitudes towards death. This exploration challenges us to consider the role of media, cultural changes, and the continued quest for control over life's final act, presenting a sobering reminder of technology's impact on our most fundamental beliefs.
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On today's episode to sexual matters. We act that way when it comes to abortion. We act that way when it comes to end of life, and the reality is it's fundamentally just never has proven out to be true. If my daughter aborts a child, it was my grandchild. It was the child that would have visited with me when it's my uncle who decides that he's going to terminate his life. It was the person I had interacted with. It was somebody that had taught me lessons, and people kind of act like they always have been living in a bubble that their life didn't matter. Maybe you felt your life didn't matter the way you want it to matter, but you can't control how the other people interpreted your life.
Paul Snamiska:Welcome to the Life Challenges podcast from Christian Life Resources your life perspective to these issues and more. Join us now for Life Challenges.
Christa Potratz:Hi and welcome back. I'm Krista Potratz and I'm here today with pastors Bob Fleischman and Jeff Samuelson. Today we're going to talk about the new wave of the culture of death. We really want to talk about some things that are going on in Europe and want to start with some of this that is going on in Switzerland with these suicide pods.
Jeff Samelson:Well, the word pod itself is just an interesting choice. I mean, it fits the thing that's being talked about. You know, physically We've got invasion of the pod, people, you know, kind of things going on. It's got that kind of science fiction-y thing. But then we've got also pods in terms of you know, like pea pods and things like that, and it's just associating them with death is just kind of, in my mind, an interesting juxtaposition of ideas and images and such.
Jeff Samelson:But the death pod is a thing. It's kind of a self-contained little unit. It doesn't look like a coffin, though it's about the same size as a coffin, and it is manufactured and designed with the idea that if you are somebody who wants to kill yourself and they're saying, if you've got a terminal diagnosis or something like that, that you go into this pod and then you are able to press the buttons that will then cause your death, cause your death. And the ideal, as the designer says it, was that it'll all be AI involved in that. It will ask you some questions that will basically assure that you know what you're doing, that you have good reasons for it and that this is really what you want to do.
Jeff Samelson:But of course it's just been used and that part of it hasn't been put into worked out quite yet, so it was basically just somebody getting in and pushing the button. This was done in Switzerland. It was the first use of this pod, which had been designed for a little while, by a woman who wanted to use it, and it was apparently in the woods in Switzerland, just across the border from Germany, and the pro-death people were all happy Yay, we proved the concept on this, and other people were aghast that death has been so mechanized in this way, and just that this is not a good thing.
Christa Potratz:Yeah, I think one thing that I found interesting with it too was you just get the blueprints right, right and then design your own pod or manufacture it's supposed to be 3d printed and that's one of those things that's uh it.
Jeff Samelson:it sounds like a bug, but it's really a point of the thing, because if they were to manufacture it and ship it, then they'd probably run into legal problems in various countries, because it is an instrument of death or even if you think of it as a medical device. You know you can't. You know these things have to be properly licensed and such, and so by giving you the instructions to have it 3D printed, then you are the only one who's involved with the manufacture of the item the manufacturer of the item what often happens.
Bob Fleischmann:You know, when you've grown to accept the idea that I can terminate my own life, then it's just a matter of improving the process. If you've ever studied the difficulty the Germans had in an efficient way to terminate the lives of undesirable people and the amount of research they did and the experimentation and gas chambers, firing squads, and it's just too gruesome to talk about here. But I mean, some of the stuff was terrible but it was literally kind of a scientific venture to find out the best and most efficient way to accomplish this out the best and most efficient way to accomplish this. Now, if you study a little bit of what's being done with this pod, it's very similar to what's being done with trying to accomplish capital punishment. What's the most efficient way? Injection and so forth. Ever since Jack of Orchie and assisted Janet Atkins with the termination of her life by having herself hooked up by IV to three different solutions and she can at her will flip the switch and then first the one solution would enter her blood system, then the second solution, and then the third solution and she's dead when it's all done. That's how it started and when that first happened in the early 90s. Everyone was aghast, everyone thought it was terrible and then of course the idea kind of caught on. Kevorkian did it like over 100 times before he finally was thrown in the jail. But then there were books. You know Derek Humphrey wrote the book Final Exit as a recipe book and how best to kill yourself best to kill yourself.
Bob Fleischmann:We had at a CLR convention, probably at least 20 years ago, wesley Smith who has been at a number of our conventions, and Wesley's a brilliant and I hope someday we can have him as a guest on this podcast. Wesley has worked with the Anti-Euthanasia Task Force and so forth, but he showed up. I remember the first time we had him at a convention. He was talking about all the different ways that you could kill yourself and he reaches into his briefcase and he pulls out a suicide kit and he starts unfurling it. And what it was is it was basically a plastic bag with a piece of Velcro around the bottom that you can put over your head and wrap the Velcro around your neck and in time you die. He said I bought this for 30 bucks or something in the back of a magazine, you know. So there are always people coming up with these crazy ways to do it.
Bob Fleischmann:Well, the way this pod works is it kind of works the same way it basically stops feeding you oxygen by flooding the canister with nitrogen, and you end it just becomes a more sophisticated way to do it, but I still remember. I remember talking to Wesley afterwards and saying I said so help me if you had had a death wish, because it really was quite alarming, because I had never seen one of these. The point is, though, is that people presume that they have the right to terminate their life, and they presume a right to some assistance, which is what we've talked about in other episodes, about medical assistance and dying and so forth. The pod is supposed to be really kind of a remake of the Kevorkian experience, and that is. Somebody else creates the device, you climb in and you push a button. It asks you one last time, are you sure? And you push a button.
Christa Potratz:Yeah, I mean I saw a picture of it and it almost looks futuristic. It's Star Trek, yeah, or even to like it reminded me of the scene from the matrix too, where he, like you know, starts unplugging himself and he like sits up and all this goop and stuff in this pod. It has kind of this and I don't know if maybe that's part of like the allure and stuff, but, um, just kind of this futuristic look, this maybe going to the next phase and stuff. And yeah, I mean, you know, maybe there is something just in your mind like a little bit more picturesque about the pod versus a coffin or even what you were describing, bob, a bag over your head with some elastic. I mean there's just I don't know if that's maybe part of what this picture is that they're creating.
Jeff Samelson:I'm sure the visual aspect of it is part of it. Yeah, you want to think this is progress, this is what the future looks like, and I'm reaching out and grabbing hold of that. One of the other interesting things the guy who designed this and promotes it uh, philip nitschke keep wanting to say ralph, but that's, that's somebody completely different green bay packers fans, but um ray, oh ray ray, sorry yeah ray.
Jeff Samelson:you know he said that one of the reasons he wanted to design this was to to eliminate the burden on physicians. So we see the progression of things that they've been saying people, for this is well, we should be able to get physicians to help, because they're the most qualified to provide this assistance to people who've decided that it's time for them to die. But now he's kind of recognizing well, it's a burden on physicians to have to oversee a process like this, to be involved with this. So this way we're eliminating them from this. So it's a tacit admission that you shouldn't have the physicians involved in the first place, but what it really is is it's eliminating anyone who might stand in between the individual who wants to die and death. And you know, again, it's just this progression of things.
Bob Fleischmann:It should be pointed out, too, that this first candidate for this pod was from the United States, and it's unfortunate. I've got some people I know in Switzerland and I often told them I was going to do a shout-out to Switzerland and that they listened to the podcast, but it's unfortunate that this is the conversation we have about Switzerland.
Bob Fleischmann:But people behind this would like it to make it kind of the go-to tourist spot for bringing your life to an end, and it's rooted in all the problems that we've talked about and all the other life issues about this idea that my times are in your hands. Passages like that from the Bible don't really matter, because this is for people who say my times are in my hands and I decide. I found it interesting too when you guys were describing the look of the pod To me. The pod. I'm a big Star Trek fan and the pod really looks like the burial casket of Spock when Spock dies, you know, and they jettison him out of the ship and send him to the planet. That's what it looks like. And whenever I read the stories about the pod I always think of the sharp contrasts, because I was early in my ministry at CLR when Kevorkian began his work and the big story about Kevorkian was Janet Atkins traveled to Michigan to climb in the back of his rusty old van to lie down on a mattress, to be hooked up to this IV. And you look at the pie and you go. My goodness, we have come a long way. Things have really improved.
Bob Fleischmann:The other thing I want to pick up on that Jeff talked about we find this on other life issues too and that is, you know, removing doctors from the burden of doing this. We see this kind of talk in abortion. You know we're trying to relieve the mother from the burden of wondering. You know what's happening, what this really is. So you know they don't want them to see pictures, that we don't want them to see ultrasounds. We do an awful lot of hoop jumping to avoid facing the reality of what we're really doing.
Bob Fleischmann:And this pod is the next step. And you know there's been a lot of stories have come out now since this is done that this may not have been as clean of a suicide as they're wondering. There's suspicions that there may have been strangulation marks on her neck, there's suspicions that there was sign of agitation within the pod, and so forth. I think that's all interesting information, but it's a little bit of a distraction. She shouldn't have been in there in the first place and Switzerland, quite honestly, shouldn't even make this kind of stuff permissible within their country.
Christa Potratz:I was going to just kind of mention some of the stuff you were talking about too, Bob, like with that, because it just seems like I've heard stories like this I think we've even talked about it on the podcast before too where these deaths maybe don't go quite as how people would think they would right, that there does seem to be some agitation at the end of life, or that there is just you know, oh, you know, we thought they were gone and then there was another movement or something, and is it really as peaceful as people think it is to die? I mean, you're dying, I don't know. Like you know, they sell it like that. This is going to be such a great way to go. I feel like they're not really selling what's actually happening.
Jeff Samelson:It's not truth in advertising.
Christa Potratz:Yeah, kind of.
Jeff Samelson:Yeah, and let's bring in the spiritual aspect of what are these people going to be waking up to on the other side? It's not going to be annihilation, it's going to be something much worse. Most likely in the 80s I think it was with, maybe it was Derek Humphries just about how there was a discussion you know it was on TV, a panel or something like that, and the other guy was advocating for some right to die legislation and that guy, you know, off camera, freely admitted that it was never going to get passed. But he says but now, when we get it on the ballot, people are talking about it no-transcript. This is part of why this is not just unique to Switzerland, but it's a much larger thing that this Philip Nitschke actually lives in the Netherlands. He's Australian, but he lives in the Netherlands, and so they were kind of wondering whether there should know there should be some action taken against him there, whatever. But there was.
Jeff Samelson:There was a quote here from a Theo Boer who spent nine years assessing thousands of assisted suicide cases on behalf of the Dutch government, noting, not disapproving, them. But he says that even though what he meaning Nitschke does is weird, it contributes to the much needed discussion in the Netherlands whether or not we need this heavy involvement of doctors, basically saying we should eliminate the doctors and just go straight forward to letting people kill themselves. Who this Bohr is? He is a professor of healthcare ethics at the Groningen Theological University, which says something a word of warning to us as Christians as well, about we need to watch our doctrine and such in our institutions as well that this is not just something out there in the secular, unchristian world, but this makes its way into the church as well. We need to be on our guard against that.
Christa Potratz:Also found it just really interesting to just kind of the connection then there with trying to eliminate doctors. And then in abortion. You know, I'm just kind of thinking like, yeah, that's like what we're doing in chemical abortion too, is this idea to eliminate doctors? Because I mean, I think maybe people don't really want to recognize it, but there is kind of something icky about both of those things, and if you are a doctor and if you wouldn't have to have that, I don't know. I mean it's just very interesting that there's that connection there with both the termination of life at the beginning and also at the end.
Bob Fleischmann:You know we call this episode dealing with the culture of death, and culture has to do with what you're immersed in, and I think oftentimes we're immersed in a culture that sees this as a dignified, rightful way. And you know, I learned long ago I learned when Kevorkian helped Janet Atkins terminate her life that what sounds like a nutcase at that time becomes reality in 10 years. At that time becomes reality in 10 years. And those of you who are old enough to remember, a show that was very popular in the 80s and 90s was the Phil Donahue show. If you've ever watched Phil Donahue, he used to have every kind of weird thing on his show. It was always very outside of the norms of society, always very shocking. I remember once he had somebody who had had a sex change in the 70s and I always remember the conversation. This person was, I believe, like a reporter with the Chicago Sun-Times and was a woman. And are you dating? Oh, yes, I date. So what does your dating partner think of this? Well, unless he's watching the show, he doesn't know. And I just think you know just how weird this is. Well, jack Kevorkian appeared on the Phil Donahue show and that's actually how Janet Atkins learned of him and of course it was crazy. It was just crazy. Nobody. Kevorkian even looked crazy when he was demonstrating talking about it. He was a pathologist. He's kind of jumping around and he would say kind of weird things.
Bob Fleischmann:And look, today we've got states where it is legal to have a doctor assist you in terminating your life. We've got countries where it is legal and advocated to do it. And now we're actually to the point in Switzerland where the issue isn't the legality of it. The issue is now how can we best do it? We have to recognize the progressive nature of the thinking on these things and so we talk, like for example today in other areas of life and family issues, when we talk about genetic engineering and cell modification and those kinds of things. When it sounds weird and scary today, don't think that people are just all of a sudden going to say, well, that's just too weird, we're not going to do that. There's always somebody much weirder than you who's going to take it up, and we have that going on now. Nitschke was not present at this woman's death, but some fellow named Florian who was present who's now under some legal scrutiny as far as participating in this.
Bob Fleischmann:I think the question has to come up what do Christians do? How do you take on this onslaught of not only the legalization of assistance in suicide, but now the refinement, the perfection of terminating life? You do it by, you know, first of all looking at what permeates your life. What culture are you in? What are the influences that convince you? And I'm always reminded of how you don't realize the effect your culture has on you until you get somebody reminding you of how your father or grandfather would have reacted to the same thing. How many times have we heard somebody say oh, if my father heard about this going on, he'd be rolling over in his grave. Oh, if my father heard about this going on, he'd be rolling over in his grave. That's called culture change and you get immersed in it.
Bob Fleischmann:And the reason I bring this up is we've been doing a lot of television watching in our family because of Diane's condition, and it is a nightmare trying to find programming that doesn't support a culture of death. I don't care what actor you're looking at. There always seems to be a growing permissibility of life losing its value. It's okay to have it terminated, and so forth. It's hard to find life-affirming television and yet never forget how influenced you are by the visual media and how that affects you and if somebody shows you a very sad story. You know, years ago, a few years ago, brittany Maynard took steps to terminate her own life who has the same cancer that my wife has and she took those steps. And so what did the media do? They showed these incredibly sad, wonderful, charming, you know, wedding caliber videos of what her life was like and what it's going to become after that. And pretty soon you're sitting in front of there going how sad and her choice was I don't want to lose dignity, I want to go out on the top of my game, and so forth.
Bob Fleischmann:And people think like this. Don't think they're just trying to escape horrible pain. They want to leave with. I still want to remember, I still want to enjoy, and the problem you have with this kind of mentality is that it never stays, even there. Of course, there are stories about this in Belgium and in the Netherlands of people who lost a love and they just couldn't bear to be without them, and so they went into this big depression and, instead of having the depression treated, they had their life terminated. You've got that when people have lost oh, I lost my hearing or I lost my sight. And, of course, who's absent from all those conversations? Probably the one who created you. And that's how Christians have to recalibrate the game, starting with yourself. Look at the influences you have and then try to be a positive influence in your environment, and that means being willing to care for others.
Christa Potratz:Some people might think too well, that's happening overseas, that's not really over here. I'm sure there's got to be some other examples of issues related to life where they started overseas but then they kind of ended up here no-transcript.
Jeff Samelson:If you got something from right on the continent, you'd be like I can't believe they allow that stuff not too long. You know, maybe, maybe it was as late as the 90s, probably the 80s, maybe even the late 70s. That was normal here and nobody was saying boo about it. And you know that happened with all the LGBTQ type stuff. It's happened with, you know, certainly with sexual morality, I think a lot of people would, you know, point particularly to the post-war era in Europe, as you know, starting a lot of that because they kind of lost their connection with God in a big way after the two world wars. But that stuff comes here in the real. Why is it that it hasn't happened faster here? Why isn't it coming sooner?
Jeff Samelson:I believe the main reason for that is the greater presence of Christians in the United States and greater acceptance of Christian values, even from people who aren't themselves believers, and that's good, but it's not good enough.
Jeff Samelson:We should be influencing the rest of the world towards godliness and good morals and things like that, and instead we let it go the other way. We do not do enough as Christians, starting in our own homes, but then in our neighborhoods, our communities, to the extent, then that we can be involved in politics as well, to just set that standard and say there is a better way and it's the right way, it's the happiest way, and to point people not just toward the practicality of it but point them towards, as Bob was saying, towards God, who is not just our creator but our savior, and he's somebody we should listen to and somebody you should listen to. And there is hope if you're hopeless. There is joy if you're joyless and all these things we can give your life meaning when you come to Christ. But there's just been too much sitting on our hands as Christians and letting these things happen.
Christa Potratz:How do we respond then to somebody who just says, well, kind of to each their own, like if people want to die this way, just let them die this way. And I think you know, like with the abortion argument, when people are saying like, oh, a woman has bodily autonomy, we go. Well, wait a minute. No, you know there's another life involved, like she can't end that life.
Jeff Samelson:But you know in this what is maybe the big deal, so to speak, if somebody wants to do this, Well, if it comes from a Christian, I think I'd be tempted to start with oh so what you're saying is, I'm not my brother's keeper? They might get the reference there and realize there's something wrong with their thinking. But another way you would challenge it is just saying are you saying this is only true for people who have a terminal illness or something, or are you saying it's true for anybody? So if your 17-year-old son, who's in high school, decides that life isn't worth living anymore, you think he should be okay with that and undoubtedly you're going to say, well, no, no, that's different.
Jeff Samelson:Well, how is it different? Challenge people on their thinking on these things. But to the heart of that is again, just turn it around and say explain to me why you think that this will not have a negative effect on our society, on our community, on our nation. There's an assumption there and it's just kind of absorbed. It's not really thought about most of the time. When people are saying that and I think if most people think about it, they realize well, yeah, when someone dies, that hurts. It hurts people and those are part of the society we live in and that's just not a good thing. And you start thinking about what goes downstream from that as well. But when you're talking to Christians in particular, just say God cares about this. God says no, suicide is self-murder. Murder is one of those things the commandments tell us not to do and if God cares about it that much, we should too. We should not in any way be encouraging it or even just permitting it.
Bob Fleischmann:We tend to think simplistically about things like it's their body, their choice, can they do what they want, it doesn't affect me, and so forth. Is there really such a thing as true autonomy? Unless you're living by yourself on an island? And again, of course, I would appeal to you to remember you're still God's creation and your allegiance belongs to him. There is this simplistic notion that if they want to do that, they can do that. I mean, we act that way when it comes to sexual matters, we act that way when it comes to abortion, we act that way when it comes to end of life, and the reality is it's fundamentally just never has proven out to be true. If my daughter aborts a child, it's fundamentally just never has proven out to be true If my daughter aborts a child.
Bob Fleischmann:It was my grandchild, it was the child that would have visited with me when it's my uncle who decides that he's going to terminate his life. It was the person I had interacted with. It was somebody that had taught me lessons, and people kind of act like they always have been living in a bubble that their life didn't matter. Maybe you felt your life didn't matter the way you want it to matter, but you can't control how the other people interpreted your life and sometimes you had profound influence and you weren't aware of it. And it's kind of like allowing your neighbor to do whatever he wants.
Bob Fleischmann:It's his house, his property. He can do what he wants Really. Really, is that how you live in your neighborhood. Your neighbor can do whatever they want. You've got some lines you draw. Why do you draw those lines? Why Because nobody lives in a bubble. Everybody lives in a community and that is why one of the fundamentals of the Christian faith has been our responsibility to care for each other and not just ourselves, to think of others ahead of ourselves. Why Because you don't live in a bubble?
Christa Potratz:Thank you both for this conversation and if you are listening and you have any questions on any of these topics, if you are listening and you have any questions on any of these topics, just let us know. You can reach us at lifechallengesus. We will have links to some of these articles that we have come across and have discussed, related to the pods and everything too. But yes, please reach out to us with any questions and we look forward to having you back next time.
Paul Snamiska:Bye to us with any questions and we look you to know we're here to help. You can submit your questions, as well as comments or suggestions for future episodes, at lifechallengesus or email us at podcast at christianliferesourcescom. In addition to the podcasts, we include other valuable information at LifeChallengesus, so be sure to check it out For more about our parent organization. Please visit ChristianLifeResourcescom. May God give you wisdom, love, strength and peace in Christ for every life challenge.
