Is it merciful to kill a person just because they are sick, retarded, or carry some other type of handicap or disability? Is it merciful to take someone’s life because they are old and no longer a productive member of society?
Rudy GrayProverbs 21:11 says: “Deliver those who are being taken away to death, and those who are staggering to slaughter, Oh hold them back.” Exodus 20:13 says, “You shall not murder.” As Christians, we should believe in the sanctity of human life. Euthanasia, or mercy killing, contradicts the principle of life’s sanctity. Christians should help people live.
The Euthanasia Society of America was founded in 1935 by Unitarian minister Charles Francis Potter. The stated purpose of the society is to promote the acceptability of mercy killing for the terminally ill who are in great pain or for the permanently helpless who exhibit great physical or mental incapacity.
Maurice Rawlings, M.D., has noted, “Euthanasia is the purposeful termination of a patient’s life by any direct means.” An example of this is an overdose of narcotics. There is a world of difference between the compassion of hospice and the practice of euthanasia. Dr. Rawlings states, “At a hospice, medications are given for the direct comfort of the patient, and overdoses are never given. Instead of terminating the patient’s life, there is an exercise of humanness.” Euthanasia involves exterminating patients rather than letting them die naturally.
The issue of an aged relative or loved one who has dementia or some other type of brain disease is sensitive. Most families probably want to help, but some families see the inconvenience and expense of caring for someone like this as a needless burden. My mother has Alzheimer’s today and I disagreed strongly with Pat Robertson’s assertion that a person with Alzheimer’s is already gone. God alone is the author of life and death, and it is God who holds the power of life and death in His hands. Instead of eliminating the lame, the sick, the infirm, etc., we should be helping them to live as much life as they can until death comes.
As God’s people, we are agents of life, not death. Someone has observed that many of us may not be as concerned about the pain of our loved one as we are our own pain. It is painful to watch someone slowly fade, but it is a pain we can manage by the grace of God. It is a difficult experience, but it can be one in which we are molded and changed for the better by God’s Spirit. Beyond that, our pain in watching them die cannot compare to the pain they may be experiencing as they die.
Recently my mother told me she was nearing the end. I asked her where she was going. She said, “Heaven.” I then asked her how she knew. She replied, “I am counting on it.” I was not satisfied with that answer. “What are you counting on?” Her answer was enough, “Christ.” So day by day she gets closer to that time. I want her life to be as comfortable and blessed as it can be while she lives on this earth.
Euthanasia, or “good death,” is a misnomer. Mercy killing is a contradiction. My mom will die in God’s time. Until then we will love her, and when His time comes we will remember God’s promise in Psalm 116:15: “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His godly ones.”
– Gray is pastor of Utica Baptist Church, Seneca.