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Welby's death also contrasts starkly from that of patients in Holland or Oregon, who receive lethal prescriptions of drugs in order to avoid pain, medical costs, or being a burden to their families. Deaths like Welby's are common in American hospitals, even outside Oregon, because our laws recognize the distinction between refusing treatment and causing death.

The Vicariate of Rome seems to believe that Welby was, in fact, courting death and on these grounds has refused a church burial. Welby was an outspoken advocate of euthanasia. The Vicariate explained its denial of a church funeral by saying Welby's "desire to end his life, expressed frequently and publicly, is contrary to Catholic doctrine." If this is the real reason the church did not perform his funeral services, then newspaper articles are further confusing readers by implying a church funeral was refused due to the method of his death and not the motivation behind it. Catholic doctrine requires the minimal care of any patient, including nutrition, hydration, cleanliness, and warmth. But it also allows patients to discontinue treatment when there is no hope for a cure.

Welby himself seems to have conflated his euthanasia advocacy with his desire to refuse medical treatment. Last month, The New York Times reported that Welby had "been pushing for a broader law on euthanasia. He also sought a court ruling for a doctor to sedate him and detach him from the respirator."

Welby has attracted the kind of public attention in Italy that Schiavo did in the U.S. But Welby sought it out, and his condition generated sympathy. He wrote, "What is natural about a hole in the windpipe and a pump that blows air into the lungs? What is natural about a body kept biologically functional with the help of artificial respirators, artificial feed, artificial hydration, artificial intestinal emptying, of death artificially postponed?" His efforts helped to make Italians more accepting of "active" euthanasia.

Addressing Welby's concerns—and those of thousands of others living on respirators or in other stages of gradual death—should not mean legalizing euthanasia for patients who no longer want to live. Assisted suicide is not the only alternative to a gradual death prolonged by machines. Newspapers should not report on debates over end-of-life care as if it were. Where should the line be drawn between allowing a disease to take its course and hastening death? These are difficult questions, which may only be determined by knowing the mind of the patient. But newspapers do little to enlighten readers when they do not differentiate between euthanasia and refusing medical treatment.

They also do readers a disservice when they present euthanasia as the only recourse for people who are unable to die as they wish. "Death with dignity" or the "right to die" need not be euphemisms for suicide. Dying can be done in relatively comfortable and painless ways, without intrusive machines and tubes. For the increasing number of patients with progressive illnesses, we need not offer death by prescription—especially when doctors can instead pursue patient comfort and give patients time to prepare themselves psychologically, relationally, and spiritually for dying.

Christians must stand against efforts to expand euthanasia. We must do so not by getting worked up over media-driven controversies, but rather by pursuing good deaths of our own and advocating the same for others. Christians can frame decisions about end-of-life ethics within our belief in an ongoing life with God, a future resurrection, and a savior who defeated death on the Cross. We can also learn from Christians like those in the nineteenth century for whom death was an important event, something to be witnessed by loved ones and enacted by the dying. Having a positive vision of what death should look like—with confession, goodbyes to family and friends who watch in vigil, and last words, completed at home or another comfortable and familiar location—would help us navigate the tricky waters of end-of-life medicine. It would also allow us to present a vision of "death with dignity" that is truly dignified, and not another form of suicide.

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February (Web-only) 2007, Vol. 51