Assisted Suicide
Attempts to legalise assisted suicide deny the value and worth of every human being as made in the image of God.
Human life is not our ‘property’. We may not just ‘dispense’ with it. As Job said: “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away” (Job 1:21). Our lives are meant for the service of God. It is not for us to ‘take’ life, even our own.
It was for fallen humanity that God sent “his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). All men are created beings who owe worship and thanks to their creator (Romans 1:21). In that sense our lives are not our own.
The Bible encourages mankind to care for his fellow man and love our neighbour as ourselves (Matthew 22:37-40), while explicitly outlawing the murder of the innocent (Exodus 20:13). Assisted suicide assists others to break the Sixth Commandment, and fails to protect the elderly, sick and disabled by affirming the belief that some lives are not worth living.
Activists do not like it when the dangers of assisted suicide are exposed, but the more people hear about the threat it poses to society, the less they like it. Any change in the law would undoubtedly place pressure on vulnerable people who would feel a burden on their family or carers, and any ‘safeguards’ limiting it to one category of people would inevitably dissolve under discrimination law.
Instead, more should be done to support the provision of hospice and palliative care services where suffering is managed with dignity and compassion.
