Late last month, a California man placed a dozen red roses at his wife’s bedside, and then shot her fatally in the head. The husband, 72-year-old Jerry Canfield, then drove himself to the police station and turned himself in, saying that the killing was a “mercy killing,” as his wife was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. They had a pact, he claimed, that when her dementia grew severe enough, he would kill her. So Canfield retrieved his wife from the nursing home where she was receiving care, brought her home, and carried out the deed. His neighbors supported the act, one of them claiming that “this might have been the last kind thing he could do for her. And I’m sure that’s what it was. Nobody could ever convince me otherwise.”

This was not the only recent example of “mercy killing.” Earlier this week a 77-year-old Texas man killed his wife who had leukemia and was in a hospice. In August a 90-year-old Ohio man was sentenced to six months in prison after killing his wife who was suffering from undisclosed “health issues.”

And at the other end of the age range, an Oregon mother killed her six-year-old severely autistic son by hurling him from a bridge, as documented by Deanna this past week. This story struck a nerve with Deanna, as she is the mother of an autistic son.

The story about the man killing his wife with Alzheimer’s also affected me personally, as my mother suffered from that disease. She passed away in 2012, although with dementia rather than from it, as she collapsed at home from a massive stroke. She underwent surgery, was placed on a ventilator, and three days later it was removed to see if she could breathe on her own. She could not. She had never regained consciousness. My mother was 88 years old, the same age as my father, who diligently cared for her at home through the entire course of her disease.

My mother died during the middle stage of Alzheimer’s disease, showing language disorder, confusion, hallucinations, and angry outbursts on occasion. Earlier in her life she had loved to walk, and would sneak out of the house when my father would doze off to wander their small town. He eventually fitted her with an emergency GPS bracelet. She had been prescribed the medication Aricept, but as she was a very tiny woman the drug affected her strongly, causing enormous mood swings. However, she still remembered family members, even those who lived far away from her hometown. The last time I saw my mother was two months prior to her passing, at the baptism of our grandson. It is comforting to me to know that she was able to meet her infant great-grandson.

My father had watched her declining rapidly, and had considered placing her in a local nursing home, an expanding facility with Alzheimer’s care available. The community is near their home, and is a facility maintained by their church body. Like any care facility, the ‘village’ was expensive, but the cost was not an issue for my father.

Yet Dad could not part with her. As he told me once, “I just can’t bear to put her in a home.” So he continued to care for my mother until he lost her, about three weeks after they celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary with her remaining siblings.

I look at my father’s care of my ailing mother, and I feel heartened. I look at people like Jerry Canfield, or the mother in Oregon, and I feel alarmed. When did we get to the point where death may be preferable to life, that the value of one’s existence is measured by cognitive abilities and sentience? At the risk of invoking the derided Godwin’s Law, I fear that we are re-igniting the concept of Lebenswertes leben — life unworthy of life — which was the catalyst for the Nazi T4 Program calling for the elimination of  “undesirables.” And while the Left continues to sneer at Sarah Palin for her warning of “death panels” in the Affordable Care Act, are we not tacitly approving of the same by making excuses for those who commit “mercy killing” upon the diseased and disabled, whether they are young or elderly?

As we enter a post-Christian, secularized America, we are tragically discarding the traditional concept of the sanctity of life, the belief that our lives are not our own, but given to us by God. When that is completely thrown on the ash heap, how can any of us remain truly safe in the instance of our own illness or disability?