Toward the new future

Human Life Review, Winter 1999 by McFadden, J P

But we stray again. Grand allusions will not do the job. We need practical solutions. Obviously the old ethic-the sanctity of all human life-must be defended, and restored. It is by no means a lost cause as, symbolically at least, President Reagan's stand in re Baby Doe should remind us. The immediate problem is to translate principles into results.

Here, we make a modest proposal which would undoubtedly sharpen not only the issues, but also the beliefs of the contending warriors. Let us ask our "medical professionals" to add a few more letters to their shingles: after John Jones, MD, let us see either SLE or QLE-sanctity or quality of life, each as he actually professes. It's only fair, surely, that "patients" know in advance what their doctor really thinks about their worth, here and hereafter? Without doubt such an honest owning-up to one's real "views" would become a prime tool in educating the masses to a problem that most certainly concerns them most personally. And of course doctors (all too many) who have been trying hard to straddle the two warring ethics would be forced to choose which side they are really on.

I have no doubt that the inspired reader can supply many more and better reasons for so simple a solution to a problem the greatest evil of which is that it is so hard to pin down. We need to know who really believes what. And, since our very lives are at stake, we deserve to know, do we not?

We began here with abortion, and all the evils it has spawned-just as slavery did-how can we end with anything less than a call for a Great Crusade to restore the sanctity of all human life? I am for such a crusade, of course, but I don't know how to bring it about. Not now, even though the handwriting is on the wall, because the majority of our fellow-citizens simply do not read it, or believe it if they do. They are much more likely to do so when it directly affects them (as abortion and even infanticide do not-we are beyond both). Our modest proposal would at least remind the New Futurites that they too are at risk. When his hour comes, will MD, QLE choose one of his fellows to "manage" his travail? Knowing what he knows about his views? Or will he (or she, of course, sorry) opt for one of the other guys, old-fashioned as he may be? As Dr. Johnson noted, the prospect of execution wonderfully concentrates the mind.

J.P. McFadden founded the Human Life Review in 1975 and was its editor until his death in New York City on October 17, 1998. This article first appeared in the Fall, 1983 issue of the Review.