If You Are a Born Again Christian and Commit Suicide
Written by Kerby Anderson
Kerby Anderson looks at euthanasia from a distinctly Christian perspective. Applying a biblical view gives us clear understanding that we are not lord of our ain life or anyone elses.
This article is as well available in Spanish.
Introduction
Debate over euthanasia is not a modernistic phenomenon. The Greeks carried on a robust debate on the subject. The Pythagoreans opposed euthanasia, while the Stoics favored information technology in the case of incurable illness. Plato canonical of it in cases of final illness.(1) Merely these influences lost out to Christian principles as well as the spread of acceptance of the Hippocratic Adjuration: "I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody if asked for it, nor volition I make a proffer to that event."
In 1935 the Euthanasia Social club of England was formed to promote the notion of a painless death for patients with incurable diseases. A few years later the Euthanasia Society of America was formed with essentially the same goals. In the last few years debate virtually euthanasia has been advanced by two individuals: Derek Humphry and Dr. Jack Kevorkian.
Derek Humphry has used his prominence as head of the Hemlock Society to promote euthanasia in this country. His volume Terminal Go out: The Practicalities of Self-Deliverance and Assisted Suicide for the Dying became a bestseller and further influenced public stance.
Another influential figure is Jack Kevorkian, who has been instrumental in helping people commit suicide. His volume Prescription Medicide: The Goodness of Planned Death promotes his views of euthanasia and describes his patented suicide auto which he calls "the Mercitron." He first gained national attention past enabling Janet Adkins of Portland, Oregon, to kill herself in 1990. They met for dinner so collection to a Volkswagen van where the machine waited. He placed an intravenous tube into her arm and dripped a saline solution until she pushed a push which delivered first a drug causing unconsciousness, and then a lethal drug that killed her. Since then he has helped dozens of other people practice the same.
Over the years, public opinion has also been influenced by the tragic cases of a number of women described as beingness in a "persistent vegetative state." The first was Karen Ann Quinlan. Her parents, wanting to turn the respirator off, won approval in court. However, when it was turned off in 1976, Karen connected breathing and lived for another 10 years. Another instance was Nancy Cruzan, who was hurt in an automobile accident in 1983. Her parents went to court in 1987 to receive blessing to remove her feeding tube. Various court cases ensued in Missouri, including her parents' entreatment that was heard by the Supreme Court in 1990. Eventually they won the right to pull the feeding tube, and Nancy Cruzan died shortly thereafter.
Seven years later the Cruzan example, the Supreme Courtroom had occasion to dominion again on the issue of euthanasia. On June 26, 1997 the Supreme Court rejected euthanasia by stating that state laws banning physician-assisted suicide were constitutional. Some feared that these cases (Glucksburg 5. Washington and Vacco v. Quill) would become for euthanasia what Roe five. Wade became for abortion. Instead, the justices rejected the concept of finding a constitutional "right to dice" and chose not to interrupt the political debate (as Roe v. Wade did), and instead urged that the debate on euthanasia continue "as information technology should in a autonomous gild."
Voluntary, Agile Euthanasia
It is helpful to distinguish between mercy-killing and what could be chosen mercy-dying. Taking a human life is non the same equally allowing nature to take its course past allowing a final patient to die. The former is immoral (and peradventure even criminal), while the latter is non.
However, drawing a precipitous line between these two categories is not as piece of cake as information technology used to exist. Modern medical technology has significantly blurred the line between hastening death and assuasive nature to take its course.
Certain analgesics, for example, ease pain, only they can also shorten a patient's life past affecting respiration. An artificial middle will continue to trounce even after the patient has died and therefore must be turned off by the doctor. So the distinction between actively promoting death and passively assuasive nature to accept its course is sometimes difficult to determine in practice. But this key stardom between life-taking and death- permitting is still an important philosophical distinction.
Some other business organization with active euthanasia is that information technology eliminates the possibility for recovery. While this should exist obvious, somehow this trouble is frequently ignored in the euthanasia debate. Terminating a human life eliminates all possibility of recovery, while passively ceasing extraordinary means may non. Miraculous recovery from a bleak prognosis sometimes occurs. A doctor who prescribes agile euthanasia for a patient may unwittingly forestall a possible recovery he did not conceptualize.
A further business concern with this so-called voluntary, active euthanasia is that these decisions might not ever be freely made. The possibility for coercion is e'er nowadays. Richard D. Lamm, onetime governor of Colorado, said that elderly, terminally ill patients have "a duty to dice and get out of the way." Though those words were reported somewhat out of context, they nonetheless illustrate the pressure many elderly feel from hospital personnel.
The Dutch experience is instructive. A survey of Dutch physicians was done in 1990 by the Remmelink Committee. They establish that one,030 patients were killed without their consent. Of these, 140 were fully mentally competent and 110 were only slightly mentally impaired. The report also found that another 14,175 patients (ane,701 of whom were mentally competent) were denied medical handling without their consent and died.(2)
A more recent survey of the Dutch feel is even less encouraging. Doctors in the The states and the netherlands have establish that though euthanasia was originally intended for infrequent cases, it has become an accepted mode of dealing with serious or last illness. The original guidelines (that patients with a terminal illness make a voluntary, persistent request that their lives be ended) have been expanded to include chronic ailments and psychological distress. They also constitute that 60 percent of Dutch physicians do not report their cases of assisted suicide (fifty-fifty though reporting is required by constabulary) and almost 25 percent of the physicians admit to ending patients' lives without their consent.(3)
Involuntary, Active Euthanasia
Involuntary euthanasia requires a 2nd party who makes decisions about whether active measures should exist taken to stop a life. Foundational to this discussion is an erosion of the doctrine of the sanctity of life. Simply ever since the Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade that the life of unborn babies could be terminated for reasons of convenience, the slide downwardly order's glace slope has continued fifty-fifty though the Supreme Court has been reluctant to legalize euthanasia.
The progression was inevitable. Once club begins to devalue the life of an unborn child, it is just a small step to begin to do the same with a child who has been born. Abortion slides naturally into infanticide and somewhen into euthanasia. In the by few years doctors accept immune a number of so-called "Baby Does" to die–either by failing to perform lifesaving operations or else past not feeding the infants.
The progression toward euthanasia is inevitable. Once social club becomes conformed to a "quality of life" standard for infants, information technology will more than willingly accept the aforementioned standard for the elderly. As former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop has said, "Nothing surprises me anymore. My cracking business concern is that at that place will exist 10,000 Grandma Does for every Baby Doe."(4)
Over again the Dutch experience is instructive. In kingdom of the netherlands, physicians have performed involuntary euthanasia because they idea the family had suffered too much or were tired of taking care of patients. American surgeon Robin Bernhoft relates an incident in which a Dutch doctor euthanized a twenty-six-yr-quondam ballerina with arthritis in her toes. Since she could no longer pursue her career as a dancer, she was depressed and requested to be put to decease. The doc complied with her request and merely noted that "one doesn't bask such things, simply it was her choice."(five)
Physician-Assisted Suicide
In recent years media and political attention has been given to the idea of medico-assisted suicide. Some states accept fifty-fifty attempted to pass legislation that would allow physicians in this country the legal right to put terminally ill patients to death. While the Dutch experience should be enough to demonstrate the danger of granting such rights, at that place are other good reasons to turn down this idea.
Showtime, physician-assisted suicide would alter the nature of the medical profession itself. Physicians would be cast in the role of killers rather than healers. The Hippocratic Oath was written to identify the medical profession on the foundation of healing, non killing. For two,400 years patients accept had the assurance that doctors follow an oath to heal them, non kill them. This would change with legalized euthanasia.
Second, medical care would be affected. Physicians would brainstorm to ration health intendance and so that elderly and severely disabled patients would not exist receiving the same quality of care as anybody else. Legalizing euthanasia would result in less care, rather than better care, for the dying.
Third, legalizing euthanasia through medico-assisted suicide would finer found a right to die. The Constitution affirms that fundamental rights cannot be limited to i group (e.one thousand., the terminally sick). They must utilize to all. Legalizing dr.-assisted suicide would open the door to anyone wanting the "right" to kill themselves. Presently this would apply not only to voluntary euthanasia simply also to involuntary euthanasia equally various court precedents begin to augment the application of the right to die to other groups in order like the disabled or the clinically depressed.
Biblical Analysis
Foundational to a biblical perspective on euthanasia is a proper understanding of the sanctity of human life. For centuries Western culture in general and Christians in detail have believed in the sanctity of human life. Unfortunately, this view is beginning to erode into a "quality of life" standard. The disabled, retarded, and infirm were seen every bit having a special place in God's earth, but today medical personnel judge a person'south fettle for life on the basis of a perceived quality of life or lack of such quality.
No longer is life seen as sacred and worthy of beingness saved. Now patients are evaluated and life-saving handling is frequently denied, based on a subjective and arbitrary standard for the supposed quality of life. If a life is judged not worthy to exist lived whatsoever longer, people feel obliged to end that life.
The Bible teaches that human beings are created in the prototype of God (Gen. 1:26) and therefore take nobility and value. Human being life is sacred and should not be terminated simply because life is hard or inconvenient. Psalm 139 teaches that humans are fearfully and wonderfully made. Society must not place an arbitrary standard of quality to a higher place God's absolute standard of human value and worth. This does not mean that people will no longer demand to make difficult decisions about treatment and care, merely information technology does mean that these decisions volition be guided by an objective, absolute standard of human worth.
The Bible besides teaches that God is sovereign over life and decease. Christians can agree with Job when he said, "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord" (Job 1:21). The Lord said, "Encounter at present that I myself am He! There is no god besides me. I put to death and I bring to life, I take wounded and I will heal, and no 1 can deliver out of my paw" (Deut. 32:39). God has ordained our days (Ps. 139:sixteen) and is in control of our lives.
Another foundational principle involves a biblical view of life- taking. The Bible specifically condemns murder (Exod. 20:13), and this would include active forms of euthanasia in which another person (dr., nurse, or friend) hastens decease in a patient. While in that location are situations described in Scripture in which life-taking may be permitted (e.thou., cocky-defense or a simply war), euthanasia should non be included with any of these established biblical categories. Active euthanasia, like murder, involves premeditated intent and therefore should be condemned every bit immoral and fifty-fifty criminal.
Although the Bible does not specifically speak to the event of euthanasia, the story of the decease of King Saul (2 Sam. 1:nine-16) is instructive. Saul asked that a soldier put him to death as he lay dying on the battlefield. When David heard of this act, he ordered the soldier put to death for "destroying the Lord's anointed." Though the context is non euthanasia per se, it does show the respect we must show for a human being life even in such tragic circumstances.
Christians should likewise reject the attempt by the mod euthanasia movement to promote a and then-called "correct to die." Secular social club's attempt to establish this "right" is wrong for two reasons. Starting time, giving a person a right to die is tantamount to promoting suicide, and suicide is condemned in the Bible. Man is forbidden to murder and that includes murder of oneself. Moreover, Christians are commanded to dear others as they honey themselves (Matt. 22:39; Eph. 5:29). Implicit in the control is an assumption of cocky-dearest besides equally beloved for others.
Suicide, nevertheless, is hardly an example of self-beloved. Information technology is perhaps the clearest example of self-detest. Suicide is also ordinarily a selfish human action. People kill themselves to become abroad from hurting and bug, often leaving those issues to friends and family members who must pick upward the pieces when the 1 who committed suicide is gone.
2d, this so-called "right to dice" denies God the opportunity to piece of work sovereignly within a shattered life and bring glory to Himself. When Joni Eareckson Tada realized that she would be spending the rest of her life equally a quadriplegic, she asked in despair, "Why can't they merely let me die?" When her friend Diana, trying to provide condolement, said to her, "The past is dead, Joni; you're alive," Joni responded, "Am I? This isn't living."(half-dozen) But through God'southward grace Joni's despair gave way to her house conviction that even her accident was within God'southward programme for her life. At present she shares with the world her firm conviction that "suffering gets us ready for heaven."(7)
The Bible teaches that God's purposes are beyond our understanding. Task's respond to the Lord shows his acquittance of God's purposes: "I know that you tin can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted. You asked, 'Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?' Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things also wonderful for me to know" (Job 42:2-three). Isaiah 55:eight-9 teaches, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. As the heavens are college than the earth, and then are my means higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."
Another foundational principle is a biblical view of decease. Death is both unnatural and inevitable. It is an unnatural intrusion into our lives as a outcome of the fall (Gen. ii:17). It is the concluding enemy to be destroyed (one Cor. 15:26, 56). Therefore Christians can reject humanistic ideas that assume expiry every bit nothing more than a natural transition. But the Bible likewise teaches that death (under the present atmospheric condition) is inevitable. There is "a fourth dimension to be built-in and a time to dice" (Eccles. 3:2). Death is a role of life and the doorway to another, meliorate life.
When does death occur? Modernistic medicine defines death primarily as a biological event; yet Scripture defines decease every bit a spiritual result that has biological consequences. Death, according to the Bible, occurs when the spirit leaves the torso (Eccles. 12:7; James 2:26).
Unfortunately this does not offer much by way of clinical diagnosis for medical personnel. But it does suggest that a rigorous medical definition for death exist used. A comatose patient may not exist conscious, but from both a medical and biblical perspective he is very much alive, and treatment should be continued unless crucial vital signs and brain activity have ceased.
On the other hand, Christians must likewise turn down the notion that everything must be done to save life at all costs. Believers, knowing that to be at dwelling house in the body is to be away from the Lord (2 Cor. 5:6), long for the fourth dimension when they volition be absent-minded from the body and at home with the Lord (five:8). Death is gain for Christians (Phil. 1:21). Therefore they need not exist so tied to this globe that they perform futile operations just to extend life a few more hours or days.
In a patient's terminal days, everything possible should be done to alleviate concrete and emotional pain. Giving drugs to a patient to relieve pain is morally justifiable. Proverbs 31:6 says, "Requite strong drink to him who is perishing, and wine to him whose life is bitter." As previously mentioned, some analgesics have the secondary event of shortening life. Only these should exist permitted since the master purpose is to relieve pain, even though they may secondarily shorten life.
Moreover, believers should provide counsel and spiritual intendance to dying patients (Gal. 6:two). Often emotional needs can exist met both in the patient and in the family. Such times of grief too provide opportunities for witnessing. Those suffering loss are often more than open to the gospel than at any other time.
Difficult philosophical and biblical questions are certain to proceed swirling around the upshot of euthanasia. But in the midst of these confusing problems should exist the objective, absolute standards of Scripture, which provide guidance for the
Notes
1. Plato, Republic 3. 405.
two. R. Finigsen, "The Report of the Dutch Commission on Euthanasia," Issues in Law and Medicine, July 1991, 339-44.
iii. Herbert Hendlin, Chris Rutenfrans, and Zbigniew Zylicz, "Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in the Netherlands: Lessons from the Dutch," Periodical of the American Medical Association 277 (4 June 1997): 1720-2.
four. Interview with Koop, "Focus on the Family" radio circulate.
5. Robin Bernhoft, quoted in Euthanasia: False Light, produced past IAETF, P.O. Box 760, Steubenville, OH 43952.
6. Joni Eareckson, Joni (One thousand Rapids: Zondervan, 1976).
vii. Joni Eareckson, A Step Farther (G Rapids: Zondervan, 1978).
©1998 Probe Ministries
Kerby Anderson
Kerby Anderson is president of Probe Ministries International. He holds masters degrees from Yale University (science) and from Georgetown University (government). He is the author of several books, including Christian Ethics in Plain Language, Genetic Engineering, Origin Science, Signs of Alert, Signs of Hope and Making the Almost of Your Coin in Tough Times. His new series with Harvest House Publishers includes: A Biblical Point of View on Islam, A Biblical Betoken of View on Homosexuality, A Biblical Point of View on Intelligent Design and A Biblical Indicate of View on Spiritual Warfare. He is the host of "Point of View" (U.s.a. Radio Network) heard on 360 radio outlets nationwide besides as on the Cyberspace (world wide web.pointofview.cyberspace) and shortwave. He is too a regular guest on "Prime number Fourth dimension America" (Moody Dissemination Network) and "Burn down Away" (American Family Radio). He produces a daily syndicated radio commentary and writes editorials that have appeared in papers such as the Dallas Morning News, the Miami Herald, the San Jose Mercury, and the Houston Post.
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