Montana and Euthanasia: Two Opposing Worldviews

You may recall during the national elections in November 2024 that, among the several state ballot initiatives, the State of West Virginia established a constitutional ban on assisted suicide. Amendment 1 made clear that “no person, physician, or health care provider in the State of West Virginia shall participate in the practice of medically assisted suicide, euthanasia, or mercy killing of a person.” 

This was a pro-life victory that many didn’t hear about in the national news because it goes against a growing anti-life narrative that celebrates “choice” and “control.” Not only did West Virginians reject the mindset of euthanasia and assisted suicide, but theirs was the first state to proactively protect all its citizens from this dangerous and life-threatening trend. 

I am thrilled to say that recently another state has moved to further strengthen its protection of human life, especially the aged, terminally ill, and dying. On February 7, the Montana State Senate voted to approve Senate Bill 136 that prohibits “consent” as a defense for physician assisted suicide. SB 136 states that: 

…physician aid in dying is against public policy, and a patient’s consent to physician aid in dying is not a defense to a charge of homicide against the aiding physician.   

Though assisted suicide is unlawful in Montana,  in 2009 a State Supreme Court decision said consent can be used as a defense to allow the practice. Basically, under the current approach, a Montana physician must simply prove that there was consent given by the patient who “freely chooses” to die by assisted suicide. SB 136, if signed into law, would remove this arbitrary loophole, which places the vulnerable in grave danger.  

Advocates for assisted suicide in Montana claim that the practice is legal, and the “right to die with dignity” is a private decision between a person and their doctor. They believe assisted suicide empowers people to have the control they want during the last days of their lives. This view was expressed by Sen. Emma Kerr-Carpenter (D) who said the state should “allow people to use physicians to aid the way they choose to leave this world.” In her plea, she attempted to paint assisted suicide as something “peaceful” and “structured,” an act of mercy that benefits both patients and their families. She claimed that to deny the patient and their families this option is to “leave them suffering in pain without a way out.”  

This rhetoric and its empty promises of a peaceful death without consequences were strongly rejected by Senator Carl Glimm (R), the sponsor of SB 136, and several other senators. Sen. Daniel Emrich (R) explained that, if the legislature allows the current understanding to prevail, it is advocating for a dangerous mindset. “We’re telling them they’re not worthy to be on this earth,” he said. “That they should just go away because they’re inconvenient. That they have some disability or ailment or we just don’t want them anymore because they’re wasting away.” 

Sen. Emrich exposes the hypocrisy and cancerous mindset of assisted suicide. Instead of offering palliative care, which respects human dignity through moral means seeking to improve the quality of life for patients and their families facing the problems associated with age, disability, or life-threatening illness, government and health care providers, the very institutions that should protect the vulnerable from abuse and coercion, are instead encouraging “voluntary” death. Even patients who face poverty, loneliness, or mental illness but do not suffer from a terminal illness are encouraged in this way. 

Where does this trend lead? If we can terminate the lives of the terminally ill, why not extend the same “mercy” to those slowly dying from debilitating diseases? What degree of senility or physical and cognitive disability shall be established as the point at which a person deserves to die? There is no end to this slippery slope. “It will just keep growing and growing,” Sen. Glimm said. 

This vote by the Montana Senate was a major hurdle. Next, SB 136 will move to the Montana State House. If passed by the State House and signed by Governor Greg Gianforte (R), SB 136 will close the dangerous loophole created by the state’s High Court and help restore trust between patients and their physicians. A person’s fundamental dignity, the root and basis of their rights, is never lost or diminished because of age, illness or physical or mental disabilities. This is why the expression “dying with dignity” is misleading. It implies that a person may lose their dignity because of illness or vulnerability. 

SB 136 will protect vulnerable people in Montana from being coerced, while advocating for and providing true compassion and care to the suffering and dying, giving them the comfort, support, and human accompaniment that truly respects and protects the dignity of human life.

The Sacredness of Human Life

In his 1995 landmark encyclical Evangelium vitae, Pope St. Pope John Paul II said, “We are facing an enormous and dramatic clash between good and evil, death and life.” He identifies the opposing forces as the “culture of life” and the “culture of death.” The first is built upon all that is true, good, and beautiful while the latter is built upon falsification and illusion, evil, and the profane. 

No one is unaffected by these realities that define and govern our approach to life. “We find ourselves not only “faced with” but “in the midst of” this conflict,” the sainted pontiff says, but “we are all involved and we all share in it, with the inescapable responsibility of choosing to be unconditionally pro-life” (no 28). 

A culture that celebrates and honors the sacredness of every human life doesn’t simply independently emerge. It is realized and grows when society is equipped, encouraged, and inspired to see every person—at every stage and in every circumstance—as one made in the image of God (Gen 1:26). Here the sick, elderly, and dying and the physically and mentally disabled find true accompaniment, love, and care. Vulnerable women find support. Born and preborn children are seen as blessings, not burdens. The poor and needy are served. In other words, every home, community, and society are refuges for the vulnerable where no one goes unseen or is forgotten. 

Anti-life ideologies, on the other hand, erode society’s respect for human life by dehumanizing people. Here the vulnerable, defenseless, and invisible are treated as expendable. Pope Francis decries this “throwaway culture” (Laudato si’), which involves a mindset and world view that discards people based on some arbitrary quantifiable value. Under this framework not only do we see the killing of innocent preborn children but the acceptance and even demand for euthanasia and assisted suicide. This occurs because the human person is considered as simply something among other things, instead of as someone, a being with incomparable value. But Christians view life and the human person differently. 

As Pope Francis says in Laudato si’,  

Christian thought sees human beings as possessing a particular dignity above other creatures. It thus inculcates esteem for each person and respect for others. Our openness to others, each of whom is a “thou” capable of knowing, loving and entering into dialogue, remains the source of our nobility as human persons (no 119).  

This proper understanding of human dignity—“that every man and woman is created out of love and made in God’s image and likeness (cf. Gen 1:26)…who is not just something, but someone” (Laudato si’, no. 65)—shapes our approach and decisions. It becomes integrated and enshrined into culture and society’s laws and public policies. Because a person never loses their dignity—not being relative to stage of development, size, nor to physical or intellectual performance—we always and in every circumstance are to show reverence and respect toward each person. 

Whereas a “throwaway culture” not only fails to respect human dignity, but it also promotes irresponsibility towards one’s neighbor, as we experience in abortion and euthanasia. Here mothers and fathers kill their children, physicians kill their patients who they have a duty to defend and serve, and governments use their power to advocate for violence against vulnerable citizens that they are supposed to defend, arbitrarily deciding who has value and who does not.

Solution

Our society’s emphasis on “choice” and “control” as the basis of humanity’s freedom are but an illusion, built on quicksand. The culture of death thrives upon this illusion, conditioning people to think that once they lose control or if their “freedom” to choose is thwarted that somehow life is simply not worth living; life has no value. We think of ourselves or of others as being less human, unworthy of living. This mindset has created a “throwaway culture” that generates the anti-life ideologies of abortion and euthanasia that threatens human dignity. 

The mindset of a “throwaway culture” has broad implications, influencing the lenses through which we view life and the human person. So “when man loses his humanity,” asks Pope Francis, “what can we expect?”  

The Holy Father says: 

What happens is what I would call in common parlance: a policy, a sociology, a “throwaway” attitude. One discards what is not needed, because man is not at the center. And when man is not at the center, another thing is at the center and man is at the service of this other thing. The aim therefore is to save man, in the sense that he may return to the center: to the center of society, to the center of thought, the center of reflection. To bring man once again to the center.  

Today, we are engaged in a spiritual battle: One side upholding a vision built on the beauty of love and the other built upon opposing this love, undermining authentic human flourishing and development. This battle is fought in plain sight and manifested in the choices we make: Either by building lives fashioned in our image or lives built upon fidelity to God’s commands and in gratitude to the One in whose image we have been made. 

What has become increasingly clear is that the battle is intensifying. What is the solution? How do we know the path forward?  

The Catechism of the Catholic Church provides the solution to this problem, reminding us that The Word became flesh “to save us by reconciling us with God, so that thus we might know God’s love,” and “to be our model of holiness” (nos. 457-459).  

The initial conversion is not in society or within institutions but in our very selves where the temptation to dehumanize and discard the vulnerable may have deep roots. Because of the heavenly Father’s love revealed in the Beloved, who became man to redeem us and heal the broken relationship between us and the Father, “we must never allow the throwaway culture,” says Pope Francis, “to enter our hearts, because we are brothers and sisters.”  

Love is a Divine Person (1 Jn 4:8), who “loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins” (1 Jn 4:10); therefore, “let us love one another, because love is of God.” For “everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God” (1 Jn 4:7). In other words, the more we come to know this love revealed in Christ—the One who paid the price for our salvation—the more we come to know love and to grow in love. We come to better understand what love is and how to share that boundless love with every person. In other words, to love someone is to will their good, to do what is good for them. 

In this cultural war, we confront distinctively different visions: truth and lies, good and evil, love and hatred, beauty and the profane. To create a Culture of Life is daunting and at times it may seem unattainable, but we must remember the faith of Christ overcame the world. “He is Risen!” (Mt 28:6) He who shares in our joys and labors is “the way, the truth, and the life” (Jn 14:6), and He accompanies us. We are not alone on the path of life. Christ walks with us. He shows us the way, shares in our efforts, and is the source of our strength.  

The initial battle takes place in the human heart. For “whoever is in Christ is a new creation,” says St. Paul and “the old things have passed away” (2 Cor 5:17). Once our hearts have been conquered by Christ new things emerge and become expressed in the construction of the society in which we live. This new life becomes manifested in culture. It is the fulcrum upon which the Culture of Life rests. This is why this battle between opposing forces is a spiritual one. Its victory will be won when every heart is converted to Christ.   

As we strive to fully realize the Culture of Life, we may be discouraged at times by setbacks, but let us take solace in the final message of Pope St. John Paul II, a man who spent his life in the service of God and neighbor: 

As a gift to humanity, which sometimes seems bewildered and overwhelmed by the power of evil, selfishness and fear, the Risen Lord offers his love that pardons, reconciles and reopens hearts to love. It is a love that converts hearts and gives peace. How much the world needs to understand and accept Divine Mercy! Lord, who reveals the Father’s love by your death and Resurrection, we believe in you and confidently repeat to you today:  Jesus, I trust in you, have mercy upon us and upon the whole world (April 3, 2005).