THEY SHOOT HORSES DON'T THEY...?

Dr Kevorkian's crusade to legalize suicide is not really new. It's been going on in quiet hospital hallways for generations. It is known as "letting the patient go." Doctors who have consensus-ed that there is no real life left in this body, often permit the body to comfortably slip away in as much comfort as they can provide.

The irony of Kevorkian's mission is that it may prove counter-productive. More doctors now taking fewer chances with their humanitarians decision, because now there is a spotlight shining in those hallways.

After all the debates about health care, government death panels, national budgets, and medical ethics, what it all comes down to is what everything always comes down to in our lives. Our lives...! Are they important enough to protect and preserve at all costs?

The young think little of this; after all, for them death has no real meaning. The very old often think of little else; after all, death is what sleeps with them in bed every night. Perhaps the most bone-deep defense of legalized suicide is the irrefutable refrain: "They shoot horses don't they?"

if there is no God and there is no soul, than surely we are little more than a higher form of horse. And, yes, why should we weave elaborate theological justifications for enduring end-of-life suffering? On the other side of the bed of pain is the possibility that we are creatures of a God who rightfully insists that He alone owns the gift we have been given.

However, perhaps none of the words count a hill of beans until they are spoken from our final bed. Only then is it likely the question has authentic meaning: "To be or not to be...?" That was not only Hamlet's question. In the final measure, it will be ours as well. What sayest thou...?