Leota’s Garden – SPOILER ALERT!!

This blog is in response to numerous questions I have received on one particular character.  If you haven’t read Leota’s Garden, please don’t read beyond this sentence.  If you have read the book and have questions regarding the medical assistant, keep reading.  This is an explanation why I wrote him into the story, and why he disappeared, leaving only the reader aware of his role in Leota’s life. 

 

While writing The Atonement Child, I went through an intensive Bible study with other post-abortive women.  One was a nurse who worked in geriatrics.  One evening, we got into a conversation about the connections we saw between abortion and euthanasia.  Arguments for both “choice” decisions are almost identical.  Thankfully, euthanasia is not legal.  However, this lady knew personally of several instances when doctors over-medicated or under-medicated in order to hasten the death of a very elderly person not fully cognizant of what was being done.  The family was not informed or involved in the decision.  Abortion preyed heavily on her conscience, and these other deaths added to her sense of guilt and shame. 

 

Also, while writing TAC, and while reading an article on women’s reasons for having an abortion, I overheard a news talk show which raised the question:  Why are so many young people murdering their parents?  It struck me like a blow:  Why wouldn’t children kill their parents? When we bring up an entire generation of children to believe life is a matter of choice and has no sacred value, why would they value our lives when we are elderly, infirmed and in need of care.  What are the usual “reasons” to abort a child:  I can’t afford a baby right now – I have my own life to live —  If I have a child I don’t want, I might end up abusing it — It’s not really a person anyway. 

 

Think about all the shades and shadows of the phrase “quality of life” and what it may mean to yours.

 

During the months of working on Leota’s Garden an appalling news story broke.  A man the paper called “The Angel of Death” left a trail of dead patients in Southern California convalescent hospitals in which he worked.  He believed each murder was an act of mercy and took the lives of over fifty people before he was stopped. 

 

For all of the above reasons, I added a medical worker to my story, one that felt he had the right to end Leota’s life because she could not move or speak.  I wanted readers to be shocked!  I wanted them angry!  And I wanted them to wonder how such a thing could happen and the man drift out of the story.  Why?  Because it is happening.  Euthanasia is not legal now, but many are pressing to make it not only legal, but a preferred option.  I read an interview in our local paper last week discussing the proposed requirement of doctors to give the “prognosis” to the elderly.  The very next question was whether this wouldn’t be a good way to cut Medicare costs. 

 

Please, Readers.  Think about this.  Language is powerful.  Words are often used to cloak evil.   We must think

 

I am against euthanasia.  Life is a gift.  The most dangerous place to be right now is in the womb of an American woman.  The next most dangerous place may be the convalescent hospital around the corner, the one in which your parents reside.  In both cases, their voices are not heard.  Those of us who believe life is precious must speak for them.