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When someone is suffering and no longer wants to live, what is the right response?

Through 10 proposed principles to help guide the conversation, On Assisted Suicide will draw readers into the mysteries of joy and suffering, life and death, and the unconditional dignity of the human person. 




 
 
On Assisted Suicide
By Stephanie Gray Connors
Word on Fire | August 19, 2024
Paperback | 192 Pages | 5.5” x 8”
 
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Mark Galli was the editor in chief of Christianity Today for seven years, a Presbyterian pastor for ten years, and a passionate evangelical Protestant since first responding to an altar call in 1965 at thirteen years old. But in 2020, Galli formally returned to the faith in which he was baptized as an infant: the Roman Catholic Church. 

With All the Saints: My Journey to the Roman Catholic Church is the compelling memoir of one man’s search for the fullness of truth. Through honest and engaging storytelling, Galli recounts the various spiritual, theological, mystical, and ecclesial tributaries that led him to “cross the Tiber” back to Catholicism. Each tradition he passed through—Evangelical, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Anglican, and Eastern Orthodox—he embraced without satisfaction and left without bitterness, drawing him finally to the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church: a Church of saints and sinners, all striving together in the great company of heaven; a Church that he could finally call home.

Honest, insightful, and entertaining, With All the Saints is a memorable love letter to Christ and his Church.











 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 


















About On Assisted Suicide







Assisted suicide and euthanasia are being legalized or at least debated throughout much of the world today. But should suicide ever be assisted? When someone is suffering and no longer wants to live, and asks another to help him end his life, what is the right response? In this powerful volume in Word on Fire’s Dignity Series, Stephanie Gray Connors engages both the mind and the heart in answering these increasingly urgent questions. Through ten proposed principles to help guide the conversation, On Assisted Suicide will draw readers into the mysteries of joy and suffering, life and death, and the unconditional dignity of the human person. 

























 
 
 










 
 

  
  
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Introducing Word on Fire Spark!

If you have children in your life, you want to cultivate wonder and joy in their hearts. In a world full of noise and distraction, you want their imagination to be formed by beauty so they will be drawn to God who is Beauty itself. You want them to be inspired by the saints and led to holiness. Word on Fire Spark is publishing the resources you have been waiting for. Spark offers carefully crafted stories with stunning illustrations designed to turn young hearts to the Gospel. 



About The Dignity Series

 


Why dignity? Because human dignity (dignitas, the worthiness of each person) is the foundation of all human society. Jacques Maritain, the Catholic philosopher who helped draft the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, affirmed this in saying, “The privilege connected with the dignity of the person is inalienable, and human life involves a sacred right.”

In a time of political polarization, social division, and the ongoing “culture wars,” the Dignity Series aims to refocus our attention on human dignity. The series enters into the great mystery of human life with wonder and reverence, and unflinchingly faces grave threats to human dignity, many of them ignored in the culture today.

Each volume in the series will examine one of those threats, drawing on rational argument, spiritual sources, and above all, personal stories that take readers into the lived experience on the frontier of the issue. This broad mix of ideas and approaches acknowledges that a wide variety of backgrounds and personalities shape how we interact with these questions—and that if a book is to help us grow, it has to stir our hearts as well as activate our minds.

The Dignity Series emerges out of and points back to the whole-life ethic of Catholic social teaching, which is grounded in the principle of human dignity. “Social justice,” the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, “can be obtained only in respecting the transcendent dignity of man” (CCC 1929). And that dignity, on the Catholic reading, can only finally rest on our status as creatures made in the image and likeness of God (Gen. 1:26). However, these books are for anyone—Catholic or non-Catholic, religious or nonreligious—who wrestles with these issues and longs to see a more informed and considerate approach to them.





















 

 


 
 
  

 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 



 

Contents


 


SERIES INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

1) Start by Asking “What?”

2) If Humans Are Equal, We All Ought to Get Suicide Prevention

3) Suffering Unleashes Love

4) We Can Alleviate Suffering without Eliminating Sufferers

5) Human Dignity Is Unconditional

6) Human Flourishing Occurs in a Context of Connection

7) We Ought to Celebrate Being

8) Some of the Best Things in Life Come When We Release Control

9) Not All Choices Are Equal, But They Create a Ripple Effect Either Way

10) Beauty and Creativity Are Transformative

EPILOGUE

NOTES
 












 

 


 
   

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 























An Excerpt from the Introduciton

An Excerpt from the Introduciton

By Stephanie Gray Connors

By Stephanie Gray Connors


 


 
Over the two decades of my public speaking and writing career, I have continually declared that we should alleviate suffering without eliminating the sufferer. As time passes, I am more convinced than ever of the truthfulness of that statement—not simply that we should do this, but that we actually can do it. But note this important distinction: to alleviate suffering is not to eradicate it. I do not think we can entirely eradicate suffering from the profoundly broken and imperfect world we live in. We can certainly try, but if we fail, we must remember that there is still hope—and that the hope lies in alleviating suffering; it lies in bringing beauty from ashes; it lies in living for the world to come. 
The importance of alleviating suffering without eliminating sufferers is so needed in a world where suicide is on the rise, where there is a segment of the population whose suffering is so overwhelming that death seems better than life.


















Here’s What People Are Saying...

 



“What do we do with the problem of suffering? This perennial question is addressed with wisdom and brilliance by Gray Connors, who has dedicated her life to helping others see the value of every single life, no matter their struggles. A must-read for anyone who hopes to make our world better and more loving.”
— Lila Rose, Founder and President of Live Action, author of Fighting for Life





“For all of human history, we’ve used stories to teach the most important lessons in life. In this tradition, Gray Connors uses stories to help us grasp that the burden of suffering is to be shared by friends, that all life is to be cherished, and that this is the only truly humane way for us to accompany those crushed by the travails of life.”
— Curtis Martin, FOCUS Founder





“Stephanie Gray Connors provides a refreshing contribution to what has become a messy debate. She wastes no time in getting to the point: this is not about assisted suicide itself, or even death, but the fear of meaningless suffering. In her clear and approachable way, she shows the reader how it is reasonable and possible to suffer well, finding strength and joy in the unexpected places of vulnerability and human limitations—things we already have in plenty. Far from being an idealistic theoretician, Stephanie uses both logic and examples of ordinary persons who have created extraordinary life and love—not in spite of but out of their own suffering. There is much more that could be said about this gem of a book! Stephanie has that rare gift of common sense, which is so uncommon in fact, and this was, although sometimes painful, a most rewarding read.”
— Thomas J. Olmsted, Bishop Emeritus of Phoenix





“Stephanie Gray Connors’ compassionate tone and razor-sharp intellect makes her one of today’s best defenders of pre-born human life. That’s why I’m so glad she’s taken these gifts and applied to them to a sadly neglected subject in pro-life apologetics: the defense of the elderly, terminally ill, and people with disabilities from assisted suicide and euthanasia. If you want to have a ‘road-map’ for approaching this subject, then I highly recommend this outstanding work by one of the world’s best pro-life advocates.”
— Trent Horn, apologist and author of Persuasive Pro-life





“Stephanie Gray Connors has long been one of the clearest, sharpest, most winsome pro-life advocates in the world, mostly for her work debating abortion. In this excellent new book, she applies those same gifts to the topic of assisted suicide. The book’s strong, pithy principles—such as ‘We should alleviate suffering without eliminating the sufferer’—offer ways to reframe the debate, and each principle is illustrated by moving stories. But this is more than a book on ethics or apologetics. It adds profound reflections on the meaning of suffering, and how to find hope and purpose even in the darkest circumstances of life. If every person read this book, the culture of life would flourish. We’d stop assisting suicides, and start celebrating the beauty and significance of all lives, especially the lives of those who suffer greatly.”
— Brandon Vogt, Founder of ClaritasU and Senior Publishing Director at Word on Fire Catholic Ministries
















 


 
 
  

 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 



 







 
 


About the Author

About the Author


 
Stephanie Gray Connors is an author and international speaker who has given more than 1,000 pro-life presentations over two decades across North America as well as in Scotland, England, Ireland, Austria, Latvia, Guatemala, Mexico, and Costa Rica. She has spoken at many post-secondary institutions, such as Cornell University, the University of Virginia School of Law, and the University of California, Berkeley. In 2017, Stephanie was a presenter for the series Talks at Google, lecturing at Google headquarters in California. Stephanie is author of My Body for You: A Pro-Life Message for a Post-Roe World, Conceived by Science: Thinking Carefully and Compassionately about Infertility and IVF, and Love Unleashes Life: Abortion & the Art of Communicating Truth. She holds a bachelor of arts in political science from the University of British Columbia and a certification, with distinction, in health care ethics from the National Catholic Bioethics Center.
 
 

“Assisting someone’s suicide does not affirm their dignity; it disregards it. It feeds into the false idea that their dignity was lost when their health and abilities were lost. Tenderly caring for someone and improving their circumstances is what reaffirms, time and again, that they have dignity.”

— Stephanie Gray Connors   
 

Introducing Word on Fire Spark!

 
If you have children in your life, you want to cultivate wonder and joy in their hearts. In a world full of noise and distraction, you want their imagination to be formed by beauty so they will be drawn to God who is Beauty itself. You want them to be inspired by the saints and led to holiness. Word on Fire Spark is publishing the resources you have been waiting for. Spark offers carefully crafted stories with stunning illustrations designed to turn young hearts to the Gospel. 

























 
 
 
  
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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