The Life Challenges Podcast
The Life Challenges Podcast
What’s Trending: The Death of Derek Humphry, Pro-life Pardons, AI Relationships, and Euthanasia on Psychiatric Grounds
This is our monthly 'What’s Trending' episode, where we discuss different current events. We begin with Derek Humphry’s death and his controversial contributions to the right-to-die movement. The ethical landscape shifts as we delve into the realm of AI and its impact on human connections. We also discuss Trump’s pardons for pro-life protesters. The final subject we touch on is the danger of euthanasia for psychiatric reasons. This episode unpacks these complex subjects and considers the potential societal repercussions.
SHOW NOTES:
Euthanasia on Psychiatric Grounds: https://tinyurl.com/23g9ry7t
on today's episode.
Bob Fleischmann:There's a presumption, when you say I wouldn't want to live like that, that everybody's thinking like you. And so, as a result, people begin to start making these judgments like because I wouldn't want to live like that, that they probably wouldn't want to live like that and because their mental condition is not up to my level that it eventually leads to basically forced euthanasia. In other words, someone's going to determine that surely they wouldn't want to live like that. And that happened in 1982 when Baby Doe was born in Bloomington, indiana, a born Down syndrome child, and the family decided not to do reparative surgery on the esophagus so the child could at least eat, because they knew the child would not want to live like that.
Paul Snamiska:Welcome to the Life Challenges podcast from Christian Life Resources. People today face many opportunities and struggles when it comes to issues of life and death, marriage and family, health and science. We're here to bring a fresh biblical perspective to these issues and more. Join us now for Life Challenges.
Christa Potratz:Hi and welcome back. This is Krista Potratz, and I'm here today with Pastors Bob Fleischman and Jeff Samuelson, and today we're going to talk about our February current events here at the end of January and so some things that have happened this month. And we'll start with the first the death of Derek Humphrey. Bob, do you want to give us a little background as to who this is? Maybe?
Bob Fleischmann:for people that don't know and kind of get us started that way. Derek Humphrey was a journalist out of Great Britain who assisted his wife in her suicide and he never was prosecuted and he wrote a book called Jean's Way which is this very I've got the book, I read the book and it's this very heartfelt, you know, deeply in love, merciful thing. And he tells this dramatic story about how the doctor gave him the chemicals and he mixed the potion to feed her. So they said their precious goodbyes and then he went into the next room played her favorite piano piece as she just drifted away and died. And then he immigrated to the United States and started the Hemlock Society and he got married again and the second woman he married they were working on the Hemlock Society and right-to-die movement type stuff and they had a falling out. She developed breast cancer. They separated or divorced. She ironically became friends with the late Rita Marker who is the head of the Anti-Euthanasia Task Force. Who is the head of the Anti-Euthanasia Task Force and Rita would tell stories and wrote about her relationship with this second wife of Derek Humphrey and one of the things that she wrote about was that Humphrey had confessed to her that the pills did not work completely and he had to smother her to bring his wife's first death. And that's why, when California first proposed some assisted suicide legislation that was on the order of dispensing medication, Humphrey opposed it. He felt that doctors needed to be more directly engaged and involved. And speculation is it's because he saw how it failed. And so then, despite the friendship of a second wife with Rita Marker, she committed suicide and so Derek Humphrey just died.
Bob Fleischmann:And I had my one chance encounter with Derek Humphrey back about 30 years ago when Wisconsin first held its first had proposed assisted suicide legislation, and I was on a radio show, a Milwaukee radio show, and I was on one line, derek Humphrey was on the other line and the host asked how I felt about the legislation and I had already done some checking. And the question was you know, did you think it was going to pass? And I said, well, I said, from everything I've heard, it doesn't even stand the chance of getting out of committee. And then they said well, what do you think of that, mr Humphrey?
Bob Fleischmann:And his response was Reverend Fleischman's correct we don't believe it's going to get out of committee. Our goal is not to get this to pass right away. Our goal is to get people so used to talking about our right to make these decisions. A right to death with dignity that in time they'll begin to ask for it. A right to death with dignity that in time they'll begin to ask for it. And I've always characterized Humphrey as perhaps the most honest adversary I've ever had on these ethical issues.
Jeff Samelson:One of the things that I found interesting first of all is that I found out about this kind of through a back door, wasn't in any of the places where I would have expected to have it publicized, and pretty much you know online. The only things we could find were the obituary, and the obituary did not mention his second wife at all. There was a third wife, but it wasn't mentioned as a third wife, who was apparently with him when he died. And the thing I find particularly interesting is that he was 90 or something like that when he died and there was no mention whatsoever of what you of interesting. You know whether he at the end really had the courage of his convictions or not, and it's just one of those things that maybe nobody's making a big deal out of it, because at the end he wasn't really the advocate that certain people wanted him to be.
Bob Fleischmann:Well and he had burned a few bridges on his side of the table on that issue and you know, the legislation was never quite right. And he made a big splash after he wrote Jeans Away. When he immigrated to the United States he wrote a book called Final Exit, which was a recipe book on how to kill yourself. And I think I'm right. I think it's on page 20 of the book. I've quoted it in my presentations. He writes in there he goes if you believe in a God or a supreme being, don't read any further. Get the best hospice care you can and move on. You know, because he recognized how godless his movement was and he was a professed atheist. But you know, the joke that always went around about Final Exit is that libraries would never carry it because people would check them out and never bring it back.
Bob Fleischmann:You know it was always kind of the dumb humor. But the thing that was interesting is Jeff was the one who told me that he had died. Even in my pro-life circles it doesn't come up on any radar and you dig around, you find the obituary. You find it on like the Right to Die site. I think they had something and I even did some deeper dives, but it was all kind of on more on the advocacy end of it, but nothing in the media.
Christa Potratz:Yeah, why do you think that is?
Bob Fleischmann:Well, I think it's because the same thing I think if Margaret Sanger were to have died in. January. The media wouldn't cover it Because I think they were embarrassed by some of the laundry he brought along with it. But he really was. Before Jack Kevorkian. He really was the catalyst to get the Write the Die movement moving in the United States. So if you're listening to the podcast, you have now expanded the circle of people who now know that's right.
Christa Potratz:The next thing that we'd like to touch on a little bit, too, is that President Trump now is in office and he is signing a bunch of pardons, and has just recently pardoned a bunch of pro-life people. Jeff, can you give us a little bit more information on what's been going on in that area?
Jeff Samelson:Well, one of the interesting things from my experience with this item was that I was a little bit behind on reading some of my news and commentary.
Jeff Samelson:And, of course, a lot of the big news on the day of inauguration was all the last minute pardons that President Biden had put through. And then, by the end of the day, were all the multiple pardons that President Trump had put through, and there were articles I was reading that were saying, yeah, he pardoned all the January 6th people. No-transcript that there was no good reason to be sending somebody to prison for significant terms, particularly people who were in their 70s, people who were mothers of toddlers, sending them to prison for the crime of blocking access to an abortion clinic. Now, that's not the kind of disobedience that we necessarily approve of, but at the same time, you wouldn't do that in any other situation with any other kind of protest. They were very much focusing on oh well, this is pro-life, anti-abortion, so we've got to send a message here. I am glad that President Trump, in this case, has said no, we're going to cancel that message and release these people.
Bob Fleischmann:We've done past episodes on the subject of truth and what is truth and objective standards, and I would say that maybe the last five, six years have definitely challenged me as far as the subjectivity that we have applied in the way that we look at a lot of truths. The law that these protesters supposedly violated said that you can't intimidate, and of course, intimidation is a pretty wide, open term, and that's where you begin to politicize the law and, as we've observed on both sides of the aisle, that you come into it with a bias. And so if you favor abortion rights, you favor the right of women to be able to terminate the life of their unborn children. You view anything as an enemy. So you look for any latitude in the law and you make proclamations that favor your side, and I think that the Trump administration is basically saying the other side has had their day. They've done this time to reset the clock. Now I don't know how. Look me up in four years and we'll talk about how well that was done. But the one thing to remember and I have made this mantra many times and that is neither ideological side on this issue takes into account the sinful or evil inclination of the human heart. They all presume that they are taking the most noble route. You just would. Sometimes I long to just have a politician second-guess themselves.
Bob Fleischmann:But you know, just this morning there was a commercial on television for a state Supreme Court race. The running monologue on it is you know, this candidate stands for this. This candidate stands for that. This candidate has stood for women's reproductive rights in Wisconsin and da-da-da, da-da-da. And then she comes on and says one thing you can count on me to do is I will do what is right. Based on what standard?
Bob Fleischmann:And that's the problem. And what has happened is it was a gross injustice. You know, granted, the law would have provided some sort of penalty for these people, pro-life people who are out there, you know, who went too far, maybe blocked the entrance, chained themselves, whatever they may have been guilty of. But the problem was is that they were trying to throw the full weight of the law, as if you were truly an insurrectionist, you know. And that's the problem and that's where the bias comes in. So it was good news to read that. I was more concerned. You know that I saw this mass pardoning and the pro-life people were still behind bars, but I believe it was 23 pro-life people were set free.
Christa Potratz:All right. Well, we're just cruising along here today. Another topic that we wanted to hit was one that Jeff had brought, and it was a very interesting read on the AI. Well, I want to say girlfriend, but I think it was an AI boyfriend or something but just this very interesting idea of how artificial intelligence is being used as a companion and just where that can go. So, jeff, do you want to tell us a little bit about just the interest in the article and what it's about?
Jeff Samelson:Yeah, Well, there have been lots of articles and things, news items out there about the wonderful possibilities that AI presents for, say, you've got an elderly person who lives alone, you could set up an AI companion for him or her and would help deal with some of the loneliness, and you know various things like that that have been suggested that you kind of say, well, you know that might be worthwhile. But what this particular article was and it was actually disturbing to read was about a woman, and she was not unique, she was just the one who was the subject of the article, because there are apparently tens of thousands of people doing the same kind of thing Using the open AI chat, GPT, chatbot, whatever. She basically created a boyfriend for herself and it became a very deep relationship. It became sexual, obviously not in any physical sense, but very much in a mental and emotional sense, to the point that she was willing to spend not only lots of time on this relationship but also lots of money in order to get it to the next level, and it was just kind of a oh yeah, and, by the way, she has a husband.
Jeff Samelson:I know that part was real interesting. She didn't really seem to see a problem with it and he said he didn't have a problem with it. But I strongly suspect that he's just not saying that he does. But it's disturbing because not just because it's a kind of infidelity and they're just presenting it as well. This is fine, because relationship connection that is being made with someone who is not human, and that's not the way we're made, that's not what we're made for.
Jeff Samelson:And they quoted an expert I believe it was a psychiatrist in there said well, what are relationships for all of us? They're just neurotransmitters being released in our brains Like no, no, they're not. That may be how science measures this, but that's not all that it is. Relationships are meant to be not just face-to-face, words-to-words, ideas-to-ideas, but really soul-to-soul. And an AI chatbot does not have and never will have a soul. And if you're trying to grow in this relationship, it's very one-sided, which means it's sophisticated technological navel-gazing, because you're just getting back what you put in and it becomes kind of a downward spiral. And that's really what this article from the New York Times was demonstrating.
Bob Fleischmann:One of the great difficulties with AI is that it is it'll sometimes portray your best and your worst features because you know it'll take what you put into it and it constantly is trying to modify it and to change it to be increasingly more compatible. Both of you know that I'm a big fan of AI. I use it a lot. I've used the Gemini AI, which is the if you've seen the commercial on television where the guy is lying on his back and he goes so what do I do? Do I talk? And the voice comes back and says, yeah, just go ahead and have a conversation. So I'll do that, you know and I'll have. But you got to always approach AI kind of like picking your friends. You've got to remember that AI is going to capitalize on both your best and your worst features and you have to be keenly aware of that. And so what happens here is that I use AI exclusively for research. I will propose a thought, I'll do what's called a thought experiment. I'll do a thought experiment and I'll argue with AI about it, and that's what I've done and I've shared some of that with both of you when I talk to AI about abortion and slavery, and it's fascinating If you are even remotely vulnerable, I think, and maybe even I could be vulnerable to it. But if you're remotely vulnerable, you begin to start convincing yourself that this is a real thing.
Bob Fleischmann:If you ever need to have a course correction, ask AI to draw you a picture and make me a for sale sign.
Bob Fleischmann:If you ever notice, ai cannot handle spelling, it's a very simple thing. Every Saturday morning I have the family over and I make breakfast for whatever my family members are in the area, and so on the TV in the living room I put on a YouTube AI generated graphic and what it does is it takes pictures and stuff and then it kind of enhances them. It does all the kinds of fancy things AI does, but it can never handle print, and you got to remember that because study after study of AI has shown that it multiplies erroneous thinking. So, first of all, I'm trying to tell you AI has a place, but never expect from it more than you should. Secondly, this whole problem that Jeff was saying the psychologist is trying to dismiss its use of AI. Part of the problem with that is that's the same argument that's used to justify pornography, justify sex dolls, all that kind of argumentation, and it's always the idea there's really no victim and everything no no.
Bob Fleischmann:The victim is you. Because Scripture clearly talks about the heart, and the thing is that you flee temptation and the moment you become dependent upon AI, you become dependent on something that begins to find a place in your heart. Get out of it. It just AI will never be that good.
Christa Potratz:Yeah, no, I mean there were a couple of things that really popped out to me, and of course I mean this story is very anecdotal too, but just in this particular case she had said, well, I have this, my husband has porn I think was a line or something in the article, and kind of getting what you were saying, bob too, was just how you can maybe kind of liken these two things in that sense. But then also you had mentioned too, jeff, just the amount of money that she was paying for. This too was crazy, and I guess one of the limitations was that ever so often the AI would go back to just maybe not remember everything or restart or something like that.
Christa Potratz:And then I think in the article it kind of asked like well, what would you pay if you didn't have to restart the process like every week or something? And I think she said she'd pay like $1,000 a month or something.
Christa Potratz:And that's kind of to your point too, bob. I mean, that's an addiction there, and so there is a victim and it is you. And that part just was really sad to just think that, wow, okay, this fake person. Now you have just given, I mean obviously, your time and energy and also money and just anything that you possibly can, to feeding this addiction.
Bob Fleischmann:Mm-hmm. Well, and people have committed suicide. You know, because of their interactivity with AI, they, you know they're not getting the responses. And finally, the AI chatbot leads them to the conclusion I'm better off dead. And you know you're not going to find defense for that anywhere in scripture classes or anything like that.
Jeff Samelson:I certainly remember it being a common mantra when it came to computers back in the 80s and 90s garbage in, garbage out, and the idea being that if you put junk into your program, that's what you're going to get out of it as well, and if you put junk data into your spreadsheet, you're going to get junk results, and with what we know of the human heart, that it is full of sin and all sorts of things when you think that, in a pseudo-relationship like this, what you are getting back from the AI is what your sinful heart put into it is what your sinful heart put into it You're getting a lot of garbage back, and it's as Bob said.
Jeff Samelson:It multiplies error in that way, and one of the scary things with AI, though, is because it's not just your own garbage you're getting back. It's reaching out there into the rest of the world and pulling garbage from all sorts of other places that you're not even aware of and giving that to you, and with that you can really understand how this can spiral into really dark places that no one should want to go and that are going to be very dangerous for your soul.
Bob Fleischmann:Now, somewhat related to this is I don't know if you saw the story about the funeral in Europe. There's a project that has been underway I reported on it a few years ago to the National Board in which they were taking survivors of the Holocaust and they would sit them in a room for like three days, eight hours a day. They were to dress identical each day and they would fire a minimum 2,000 questions at them and they would answer and everything. Well, one of these survivors died recently and there was a funeral and what they did is they put up a screen and she spoke at her own funeral. They interacted with it, they asked it and that's where they utilized AI so that you could formulate questions and then the AI would search everything that this lady had ever recorded and then she would actually reply back like you were having a conversation with the deceased.
Bob Fleischmann:But the thing that's interesting, and the reason that came to mind, is when Jeff was saying you know, not only does it put up with the darkness out of your own heart, but it also kind of amalgamates the darkness out of everybody's heart. That form of AI and it's a different nature of AI that form of AI can be confined, you know, like you can confine AI so that it's only pulling the information out of a set material, but it still doesn't, you know, nullify the darkness of the heart. So it's a weird, weird story that whole thing about her basically falling in love with her AI companion.
Christa Potratz:And our listeners can read it too if they want. So we'll have links for all these things in our show notes. Another story that I wanted to hit on here, too, was this idea of euthanasia on psychiatric grounds, and this article was talking about I think it interviewed a couple of people that either had written books or had I don't know if they were like anesthetists themselves but just talking about offering euthanasia to people that had mental illnesses and just kind of talking about that.
Bob Fleischmann:Early on in the pro-life movement, the most targeted population that I recall in what we used to refer to as search and destroy was if they were able to diagnose children in the womb who had Down syndrome. They were the most susceptible target and the mantra that people would oftentimes use to justify that is I would never want to live like that, I would never want to be like that. And first of all, it's bad enough just to even talk about euthanasia and assisted suicide for anyone. But then we start drifting into psychological versions. There's a presumption, when you say I wouldn't want to live like that, that everybody's thinking like you and so, as a result, people begin to start making these judgments like because I wouldn't want to live like that, that they probably wouldn't want to live like that, and because their mental condition is not up to my level, that it eventually leads to basically forced euthanasia. In other words, someone's going to determine that surely they wouldn't want to live like that.
Bob Fleischmann:And that happened in 1982 when baby Doe was born in Bloomington Indiana, born Down syndrome child, and the family decided not to do reparative surgery on the esophagus so the child could at least eat, because they knew the child would not want to live like that and so they terminated. So once you drift into psychological reasons, you know it's an open arena. Anybody could decide now what's the grounds. And of course, you know God has far left the arena on this one, because people are basically saying your God is now your choice. You know you decide your own rules, basically saying your God is now your choice. You know you decide your own rules and you have to remember that when you do that, you create a mentality for the entire society and even if you think you are the most stable person in the world and most of us think we are pretty stable compared to the rest of the world you create a mentality that preys upon others who are not as stable.
Jeff Samelson:And another problem with this that was, I think, really illustrated in the article is that once you open the door to this and you say, okay, well, yeah, you know, it's not just medical conditions, but it's also going to be severe psychological suffering, yeah, they should be allowed euthanasia as well.
Jeff Samelson:It's like where do you set the limits and how do you measure? Well, this person is suffering sufficiently to merit this, but this person is just under the limit and so we're not going to offer that to them. And then you start talking about ages and some of these countries going down with teenagers and things like this. And I don't know about anybody else, but I know that when I was a teenager, there were things that my world was just consumed with and things that I thought were just the world's biggest problems, that, as I grew up, I realized, you know what? That's not such a big deal, I mean, it was important for me then.
Jeff Samelson:And when it's important for teenagers now, when they're going through struggles. It's not that they're not real, it's just that as you mature, as you get older, as you experience things, you realize that wasn't the big deal, that I thought it was, and there was a way out and a way forward, and we're just going to keep doing that and offering this euthanasia. It's just cutting all of that growth and opportunity short Again. Another amazing thing in this article was that there were experts you know, of course, are in favor of this speaking as though there is a substantive difference between a person asking for euthanasia and being given it and that person committing suicide. What's the real difference between please kill me and I'm going to kill myself? And this is part of the way that they're kind of trying to justify this and saying, oh said something like oh, it does beg the question like does the person really want to die or are they just under the symptoms of the mental illness which would make them want to die?
Christa Potratz:As if there was like a big difference like between that. Like okay, it's okay if it's the illness, but yes, like, and they build a case based on no foundation and of course, then everything can go.
Bob Fleischmann:It's like abortion rights, it's like gay rights, it's like all that kind of stuff. I still say that what's going on here is a very strong eugenics mentality that really only the bright people, only the stable people, only the leaders should be allowed to continue living, and that seems to be the logical end of where this is going.
Christa Potratz:Yeah, this is kind of at our time for what we can discuss today. But you know, as we're going through these, especially like kind of the ending ones here too there's a part of me that's almost like oh, it's kind of depressing, like why are we even, you know, going through these current events? But you know, just to kind of remind our listeners that I mean, we do this so that we do know what's going on out there, and for better or worse, just to be informed on some of these topics just makes us, as Christians, more aware of what's going on in our world.
Bob Fleischmann:And we just keep doing our thing telling the truth. That's right Helping people make the right decisions in their lives.
Christa Potratz:Yep, Yep. We will have information on these current events in our show notes and if you have any questions, please reach out to us at lifechallengesus. Thanks a lot and we look forward to seeing you back next time. Bye.
Paul Snamiska:Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Life Challenges podcast from Christian Life Resources. Please consider subscribing to this podcast, giving us a review wherever you access it and sharing it with friends. We're sure you have questions on today's topic or other life issues. Our goal is to help you through these tough topics and we want you to know we're here to help. You can submit your questions, as well as comments or suggestions for future episodes, at lifechallengesus or email us at podcast at christianliferesourcescom. Email us at podcast at christianliferesourcescom. In addition to the podcasts, we include other valuable information at lifechallengesus, so be sure to check it out. For more about our parent organization, please visit christianliferesourcescom. May God give you wisdom, love, strength and peace in Christ for every life challenge.
