Edgar Allen Beem makes interesting comments about LD 1270, “An Act Regarding Patient-Directed Care at the End of Life.” But the comment I find most interesting was one in which he comes down on Catholicism for the suggestion that “life is a sacred gift from God, and only he can determine the time of our death.”

Assuming that statement to be accurate, does that theologically mean that one who is dying and in outrageous pain, does not have the right to activate their own death, while “the Church” has no problems with the killing of thousands in war who wanted to live, but were killed by others, and that God also approves? There is a problem here.

Peter Boehmer
Falmouth