Context. Context. Context. As editorial writers wax eloquent about how assisted suicide would just be about “choice” and managing one’s own end of life, story after story is being reported about how those on the margins are abused, neglected, and marginalized.
This is one such awful story, reported today in the San Francisco Chronicle:
Mary Schneider lived in one of the city’s most exclusive retirement hotels, complete with gourmet meals and contracted around-the-clock care, but she died last year in agony and neglect, suffering horrific bedsores.
The bedridden 91-year-old died in May after a San Francisco city agency failed to properly investigate a complaint that she suffered from bedsores, according to criminal court proceedings and the agency’s own written procedures.
Stories like this should be considered when debating assisted suicide. But too many journalists and politicians take a decidedly myopic view of the story as being a contest between rational modernists who respect “choice” and the nasty pro lifers who want to control others’ lives.
Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.
First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.
But we can’t do it without readers like you.
Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.
Your gift anchors readers in the permanent things.
Make your Fall Campaign gift now using the button below.
If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Giovanni Del Piero, Director of the Editor’s Circle, at gdelpiero@firstthings.com or 212-627-1985.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
The Church in the Age of Therapy
In 1966, Philip Rieff wrote in The Triumph of the Therapeutic that “Religious man was born to…
Canada’s Deadliest Blind Spot
On September 20, the Daily Mail ran a story with the provocative headline, “Our 83-year-old Christian grandmother…
The Faithful Joy of Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen
Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen seem to have had little in common. She favored rhinestones; he wore…
