Preserving Life
You’re really in there, I believe. You wanted to die, but I saved you. As I read your brain activity, you’re still aware. You just can’t show us.
How do I know that? I’m the neurologist who saved your life. You botched the attempt to kill yourself, and I kept you alive. There was brain damage, yes. No, you can’t respond. But you’re alive in there. I know it. No doubt at all.
Yes, your wife told me “no heroic measures.” But that meant nothing beside the moral imperative. I had to preserve your life. Dead, there’s nothing anybody, nothing even God, can do. And you didn’t really want that, not with the way you botched your attempt to take your own life!
What could you have been thinking? You were about to take yourself out of God’s hands, away from God’s grace! No possibility of repentance then. Just the eternal fires of hell, where you could regret your decision forever.
But I saved you. And since I know you’re in there, you’ll have time to regret your decision now, to repent. You’ll thank me. As close to the flames as you were, I bet you’re thanking me now.
No, won’t happen. Your wife won’t force me to remove life support. I got her charged with helping you kill yourself.
True, it won’t hold up, but the court cases will drag out for years. I have a foundation that will fund your care, and another that will pay the legal bills. Politicians are signing on. All for your sake! All to preserve your life!
So if you haven’t already, you’ll have plenty of time to repent. And to thank us.
For preserving your life, of course!
I have to do this. I had to save your life, because life is sacred. I have your soul, the only thing more important than your life.
I’m certain it’s the right thing to do.
For some non-fiction thoughts on end of life, see:
Hospice and Palliative Care: A Quality Alternative to Assisted Suicide
