Tag: Assisted Suicide

New York Court: No Right to Assisted Suicide

Last week a court in New York issued a good ruling finding no “right” to assisted suicide.

The court wrote in part,

“While suicide is no longer prohibited or penalized, the ban against assisted suicide and euthanasia shores up the notion of limits in human relationships. It reflects the gravity with which we view the decision to take one’s own life or the life of another, and our reluctance to encourage or promote these decisions.”

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. While the term “pro-life” is often applied to work related to abortion, opposition to suicide and euthanasia falls under the purview of pro-life work as well.

In recent years suicide and euthanasia activists have worked to make gains in state legislatures and in the courts. This ruling from New York is welcomed, because there simply is no constitutional right to take human life at will, plain and simple.

You can read more here.

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Speaking Intelligently on Euthanasia

In a culture that increasingly seems to support euthanasia and assisted-suicide, do you struggle with speaking clearly and intelligently on the issue?

Our friends at the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview have released a short commentary that clearly sums up ways we can engage our friends and neighbors about the sanctity of human life.

John Stonestreet writes,

“A great place to start: focus in on the definition of words, especially ‘dignity’ and ‘compassion.’ These words are used to great effect by pro-euthanasia forces, but they’ve been redefined. ‘Dignity’ went from meaning worthy of honor and being treated with respect to meaning little more than fully affirming one’s lifestyle choices.

“And, ‘compassion’? Well, that one’s been really debased. The word comes from the Latin for ‘to suffer with.’ The Greek New Testament word rendered ‘compassion’ meant to feel something in your guts. Both captured the intense and very personal quality of true compassion. . . .

“So this is what our neighbors must understand. Wherever physician-assisted suicide has reared its ugly head, ‘dignity’ is reduced to an economic calculation, not an inherent quality that we all share. And there’s nothing ‘compassionate’ about physician assisted suicide, either. Instead of suffering with someone, it merely insists they go away. Permanently.”

I strongly encourage you to listen to Stonestreet’s full commentary. You can check it out below or click here to hear it at BreakPoint.org.

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