The emotional impact of CBS' well-produced media piece is profound. In an era enthralled with feeling, it will surely hit the intended mark, conferring a public Benediction upon the replacing of "absent" spouses. But if Petersen's choices become normalized, these shifts will rarely occur as neatly as they appear to have for him. Soon enough this "brave" life-choice will devolve into something more banal and expedient, particularly for those lacking means. The continued existence of the "gone" spouses will be deemed too painful to watch, or too meaningless for human dignity, or simply too expensive to sustain, and another thread in the seamless garment of life-and-death issues will have frayed and snapped. Anyone, or any church, daring to object to the forward thrust of so inevitable a narrative will face certain denunciation as cruel, cold-hearted and judgmental.
I cannot judge Barry Petersen, and I would not. That is God's job, and none of us know his mind. I have no idea what torments Petersen has endured, or how he came to his decisions. But it is not enough to simply be "moved" by this story and therefore bestow a compassionate and unthinking thumbs-up to all the choices that have been made. Those choices -- now launched on a ship of emotion, for all to board -- will resonate within our consciences, eventually impacting medical and legislative actions, and further challenging the churches. I am a woman with neurological problems, whose future is as unknown as anyone's, and these questions about the limits of life and love, awkward and unwelcome as they are, must be asked, before we all become lost.
Elizabeth Scalia manages the Catholic portal at Patheos and is a contributing writer for First Things. This essay is an expanded version of a briefer column, Love, Limits and Loss, published there.
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