Pushing the Limits on Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia

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This week our friends at the Colson Center for Christian Worldview published a commentary highlighting Belgium’s efforts to push the boundaries when it comes to suicide-by-physician and euthanasia.

John Stonestreet writes,

[Assisted suicide is] not about alleviating suffering.

A psychiatrist in Belgium approved the doctor-assisted suicide of a healthy 38-year-old woman diagnosed with Asperger’s. Asperger’s is a mild form of autism.

It’s not a terminal illness. It does not lead to anything that could be considered “unbearable and untreatable suffering.” That’s Belgium’s squishy definition of eligibility for assisted suicide. . . .

Wherever assisted suicide is permitted, it’s not just the terminally ill who die. It’s the vulnerable among us.

He’s exactly right.

Researchers in North America have continued to find that people who ask a doctor to prescribe drugs to help them commit suicide generally aren’t concerned about pain and suffering caused by a terminal illness. They’re worried about losing their autonomy or their way of life.

In Canada — where assisted-suicide is legal — researchers found that people inquired about assisted-suicide not because of excruciating pain, but because they are dissatisfied with their lives in the wake of their illness.

As one researcher put it, “Their quality of life is not what they want. They are mostly educated and affluent — people who are used to being successful and in control of their lives, and it’s how they want their death to be.”

Since 1998, more than 90% of the people who inquired about assisted suicide in Oregon said they were concerned about losing their autonomy. More than 75% expressed worries about losing their dignity. Only 26% said they were concerned about controlling their pain.

Last August we told you Belgian doctors have euthanized at least three minors suffering from brain tumors, muscular dystrophy, and cystic fibrosis. And in October we wrote that Canada’s largest children’s hospital was drafting a policy regarding euthanasia that some say could eventually let children decide to be euthanized without even notifying their parents.

I’ll keep saying it: Being pro-life means believing human life is sacred from conception until natural death, and it means opposing the taking of human life without just cause. Just like abortion, euthanasia and assisted-suicide are murder, and they violate the sanctity of human life.

Photo By Colin (https://www.flickr.com/photos/cckaiser/3619297168/) [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

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Children’s Hospital in Canada Drafts Pro-Euthanasia Policy

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Canada’s largest children’s hospital is drafting a policy regarding euthanasia that some say could eventually let children decide for themselves whether to be euthanized, according to various sources.

Currently, Canada allows physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia for adult patients. A working group from the hospital published an article in the Oxford-based Journal of Medical Ethics detailing how children in Canada could be euthanized if the country’s laws are amended to allow euthanasia of minors.

The proposed policy argues there is no ethical difference between a terminally ill patient declining medical treatment and a terminally ill patient choosing to die by lethal injection.

Needless to say, the fact that a leading children’s hospital is weighing whether or not doctors should be allowed to kill children is causing controversy.

Wesley J. Smith writes,

One would think that — at a bare minimum — such homicides should require parental permission. But no. If the child is considered mature enough to make decisions, parents can be kept out of  the death discussions. Indeed, the authors envision scenarios in which parents aren’t even notified by doctors that they are going to kill their child! . . .

Can you imagine visiting your sick child, only to learn that hospital doctors killed her because she asked to die and wanted you kept in the dark? The rage and agony would be unimaginable.

Sadly, euthanizing children is not a new phenomenon.

Last August we told you Belgian doctors have euthanized at least three minors suffering from brain tumors, muscular dystrophy, and cystic fibrosis.

Like Belgium, Canada has seemed obsessed with euthanasia since its legalization in 2016 — even going so far as to consider paying doctors a premium to prescribe lethal drugs.

Princeton bioethicist Peter Singer infamously argued a few years ago in favor of “post birth” abortion — killing children after birth in certain circumstances. Unfortunately, Canada and other countries seem to be turning those sorts of radical ideas into a reality.

And the United States is not immune. Bills legalizing assisted suicide and euthanasia have been filed in about half of all state legislatures in the past five years, and physician-assisted suicide now claims one life per day in California on average.

I’ll keep saying it: Being pro-life means believing human life is sacred from conception until natural death, and it means opposing the taking of human life without just cause. Just like abortion, euthanasia and assisted-suicide are murder, and they violate the sanctity of human life.

Photo By Colin (https://www.flickr.com/photos/cckaiser/3619297168/) [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

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CA Further Relaxes Laws on Assisted Suicide

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Last week we wrote that physician-assisted suicide is claiming nearly one life per day in California alone, on average.

This week our friends at the Colson Center for Christian Worldview have released a brief commentary regarding other outrageous changes California has made to its assisted suicide laws.

Lawmakers in California recently passed a bill making it easier for children to encourage their parents to seek out physician-assisted suicide “services.”

John Stonestreet writes,

It is now legal for children, or anyone else for that matter, to encourage vulnerable parents to avail themselves of doctor-assisted suicide.

Of course, people considering doctor-assisted suicide are just as vulnerable as anyone else considering taking their own lives. They are just as susceptible to pressure and manipulation, especially if those who are urging them to die “love them.”

I’ll say it again: Human life is sacred, and no sickness gives us an excuse to end someone’s life prematurely — including our own. Simply put: Physician-assisted suicide violates human dignity and the sanctity of human life.

You can read or listen to Stonestreet’s entire commentary here.

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