Jerika Bolen, a teenager from Appleton, Wisconsin, made national news last summer when she announced that she would schedule her own death. Bolen was suffering from spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) type 2, a debilitating and often painful disease that confined her to a wheelchair; for twelve hours a day she required assistance from a BiPAP breathing device. Following her fourteenth birthday, Bolen decided that she had had enough. She made plans to enjoy her last summer and even organized a prom, widely promoted and publicized as “J’s Last Dance.” The event was met with overwhelming community support.
Following Bolen’s announcement, an editorial in “The Compass,” the official newspaper of the Diocese of Green Bay in Wisconsin, offered sound principles regarding the avoidance of euthanasia and urged caution as persons facing end-of-life decisions navigated the challenging realm of ordinary and extraordinary means. Twenty-three-year-old Jordan Shroeter of Grafton, Wisconsin, also living with SMA, pleaded with Bolen on social media, “Please don’t do this, please reconsider this.” Sadly, most of the other voices around Bolen were sending a different message. Bolen died, as scheduled, this past September 22.
Every day in the United States we hear that, “black lives matter,” and “gay lives matter,” and that is absolutely true. Jerika Bolen happened to be both, but that was not enough to give her the support she needed to make the choice for life. In a culture where some lives are deemed not worth living, no lives in the end can truly matter.
