The Funny Lady Is Dead Serious:
The Real Risks of a Too-Easy Exit
by Charles Colson
BreakPoint Commentary #000113 - 1/13/2000
emember Phyllis Diller, the self-deprecating comedienne with the crazy
hair and zany wardrobe? Seems like she's been around forever, and she still
is around. She was on "Larry King Live" last week, looking better and
younger than ever. She doesn't have those startling features to make jokes
about anymore, thanks to the multiple plastic-surgeries she told us all
about.
But Phyllis wasn't on the King show to be funny: She was one of several
guests on the program that evening, the others being medical experts. The
subject was depression. It seems that Ms. Diller, though looking anything
but glum, dressed in bright red and making clever quips, was recently in
the grip of a deadly depression.
It's hard to picture the lively funny lady as very ill, but Phyllis has had
many health problems and was hospitalized. She had a severe reaction to a
drug and was paralyzed. Finally, she wanted out.
She asked her doctors to give her a drug so she could "just float away."
They refused, citing the law. "Dr. Kervorkian was in jail," she added. So,
thankfully, the good "Dr. Death" did not make a call to her hospital room.
"Why did you want to die?" they asked her on the King Show. "Did aging have
anything to do with it?"
"No," she said. It was being paralyzed. Helpless. She could see no way out.
So what happened? Her body healed, the paralysis left, and now she is in
good health again. Larry King asked if she was glad her physicians didn't
do as she had asked. Phyllis grinned and assured him: "You better believe I
am!"
But the question that begs to be answered is this: What if she had lived in
a European country, such as the Netherlands, that had a "Right to Die" law,
or in a state like Oregon, which has legalized assisted suicide? She made a
good case for her own death. She was elderly, paralyzed, in her right mind,
and requested assistance in dying.
Doctors there probably would have obliged. Dr. Kervorkian, too, if he
weren't under lock and key. All in the name of compassion and relieving
suffering.
The only trouble is, it was the depression talking. Relieve the depression
and change the circumstances, and the person with the death wish may change
his mind. But "mercy killing," as it's called, is a very final solution. It
allows no time for a changed mind.
People who want to die, like Phyllis Diller, see no way out. They are
suffering and want to end it. But God allows suffering, pain, and dying in
this world for many purposes. Some people take this time to reflect on
their lives, to make amends, and to heal family rifts. Friends and family
may have a meaningful experience with the suffering person, maybe for the
first time.
And people who would never have done so before often seek and find God in a
crisis.
If someone cannot bear the pain, doctors should relieve it. If they cannot
cope with their situation, then others should help. But no one has the
right to "play God" and end a life.
At the show's end, Larry King said to Phyllis, "We're glad you're still
here." She was glad, too. And so are we all.
Copyright (c) 2000 Prison Fellowship Ministries
Fr. Thomas Au