William E. May, Senior Fellow at the Culture of Life Foundation, writes:
The legalization of voluntary euthanasia would surely further erode the bonds holding the human community together—bonds already seriously eroded by public policy granting women the abortion liberty and denying to the unborn the protection their lives deserve. As Arthur Dyck has reminded us, human agents such as ourselves exist only because of the cooperative behavior of others. Human agents, including women who seek abortion and individuals who want to be killed for reasons of mercy, come to be only because others have given them life, and they continue to be only because others have nurtured and sustained them, have preserved their lives and refrained from harming and killing them. Dyck points out that there are certain “natural proclivities” (St. Thomas Aquinas called them “natural inclinations”) essential to the continuation of human life and of human communities: some make life possible to begin with—the proclivities to procreate and nurture; to protect and enhance life for persons both as individuals and as members of a community, etc. And there are certain natural “inhibitions”: those against killing, against taking away or failing to provide life’s n necessities. These natural proclivities and inhibitions make individual and communal life possible.
