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Christianity Today, March, 2009 |

Quieter Killings

Physician-assisted suicide is spreading beyond Oregon's borders.

Sarah Pulliam | posted 2/16/2009 10:27AM

More than 10 years after Oregon stoked fears when it became the first state in the nation to legalize physician-assisted suicide, Washington and Montana quietly followed suit in late 2008.

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H. D. Schmidt

Posted: February 25, 2009 7:11 AM

I might be looked at as uncivilized, and even a little barberic from the stone age etc., after you hear what I will put in a question: Since when has the God of heaven given approval to the Christian Community, especially in this land under God, and in essence looked upon by the world as the hub of Christianity, yes approval to the usage, if at all, of ever more contraceptions in the bedroom where a man and woman start to live together in holy matrimony? Yes, and as I see things, it has actually become the forerunner to the ever cheapening of human life, as God intented, to where now this nation is the mass grave of 50 or so million of unborn babies, and nobody is going to convince any truly Christian, that those murdered babies are solely, sons and daughters of the secular world! Is it not also the fact of life, presently pulpits are basically quiet while many a pulpit, actually fully supports America's evermore despicable gun/killing diplomacy, worldwide? Is God still smiling?

Majorie

Posted: February 24, 2009 7:22 PM


I think it is crazy to try to "play God"- but, unfortunately, that's what we're coming to. We should just trust that God knows what's best. In God We Trust!

Rod	Posted: February 24, 2009 3:31 PM

Promoting suicide is never right. At what point do we decide to draw the line. If we feel someone is incapable of making a full recovery, or must they already be at death's door? When does it become a convenience or economic factor? Patients who are in pain need to be made as comfortable as possible unless the medications would significantly shorten life and then only as the patient themselves agree. This is not something to be left up to anyone else to decide. We are not dogs or horses who should be "put down" to avoid suffering. What has happened to the Hypocratic Oath? Have our doctors lost their minds, or just their conscience? We all have great value and one's life should neither be prolonged or shortened arbitrarily. If there is a reasonable chance for recovery then whatever is necessary should be done to prolong life. If the patient refuses treatment, thier wishes should be respected, but it's never right to assist someone in committing suicide

Elizabeth

Posted: February 23, 2009 12:27 PM

There is a big difference between giving someone medications to hasten death and withholding treatment that would merely prolong life when a person is terminally ill. As far as IVs and feeding tubes for terminally ill, I'm not sure. Perhaps that needs to be looked at case by case, with a lot of prayer. I have heard of people refusing to increase pain medications for terminally ill because it would "shorten" life (and I am not talking lethal doses that are for the purpose of causing death). Sometimes, the best option is to keep a person comfortable and allow them to go home to God. A cousin turned down treatment for a recurrence of cancer recently because it would only prolong life by a few months this time. I sat by my Dad's bed in a hospice last year, having agreed to turn down very high risk heart surgery that the specialist said he would have said no to if it had been his own father. Allowing death naturally and easing pain is not muder or suicide. Causing death is!

Ifeanyi

Posted: February 19, 2009 1:44 AM

As a believer and surgeon, I would draw a line between stopping a course of medication which is clearly having no impact on mitigating disease progression in what is considered terminal ilness, and actively speeding up the process of death by lethal injection. The problem lies with using statistics to decide on individual cases. No physician can say with certainty that any particular patient will die in 6 months. we can only use statistics to show experience from other patients. Robert Koch's book on the right to live and the right to die remains relevant today.

Sharron

Posted: February 18, 2009 1:58 PM

I have to agree with Ben's comments that the argument is confusing. Especially if the person is suffering. Why is it so hard to believe that if technological devices are removed, especially respirators, God will either give the person breath and continue life or will allow them to pass? If this is a Christian we are discussing, why wouldn't he/she rather go to be with the Lord than be kept "living" artificially. I know that is my wish if the circumstances ever arise that I am being held alive by machines with "no hope of recovery", that I be taken off. If the Lord wants to give me breath, so be it. But I would much rather go home to be with Him. I recently helped with woman who was dying and had a DNR order. She lived way past the physicians' and hospice nurses' expectations and was cognizant up until a few days before her passing. I believe hospice is a wonderful thing and I also believe it must be up to the individual involved as to what they wish done if the decision should arise

Phil	Posted: February 18, 2009 11:59 AM

Please!! When you follow a party line with the title of 'physician assisted suicide' you are just adding to the confusion and controversy of extremism on both ends of this real-life drama, played out each day. As a hospital and hospice chaplain, and working with advance directives each day for the past ten years, 99.99% of us are in the middle. We would not under any circumstances do anything to deliberately end of life. That includes all the doctors and nurses I have ever worked with. But our hearts break several times a week when we are forced to provide aggressive treatment and use extreme measures for those for whom there is no quality of life, the chances of significant recovery are all but non-existant, and there is no one to say: 'Stop, let's think about what it is that ?? would want us to do. It is their life and death, and not our own.' Time after time when that discussion includes the patient being treated, it is clear that all we are doing is prolonging suffering.

Tim Schutte

Posted: February 18, 2009 6:18 AM

"PLAYING GOD" well I guess you can refer to it that way if you want to, it is your right. Having lost a mother VERY SLOWLY (took 5 year total and the last 3 she did nothing but lay in bed and did not know anyone that came to see her). It was very painful to watch as see her just a shell and no life. I prayed many nights that GOD would take her home. She had lived about as good of Christian Life as any one I know. She was NOT perfect, no one on earth is, but she lead a very good life and treated all people (Young and Old, Slow and inteligent, never saw race) good. Why can anyone tell me WHY GOD thought she needed to EXIST for those last 3 years? YES, if it would have been legal I know my mother would have asked to have assistance in death when/if she ever got to the point where she can not take care of herself. If she would not have been in a Nursing Home, feed through a tube and kept a live she would STARVED to death the first year she was there. SO WHO IS PLAYING GOD NOW.

Rebecca Wold

Posted: February 18, 2009 12:14 AM

I was in Nursing for 40+ years. I took care of the elderly. In those 40 years I witnessed many deaths. I saw dear Saints go to be with Jesus. I held many hands of the dying, singing to them praying for them and with them. I Also witnessed the horror of those who did not know nor did the want to know Jesus and the they saw where thery were going and they had horrible hard deaths. I've worked with Christian Doctors and Doctors who didn't believe. Reguardless of what the "World" may say God is the only one who can take a life when He is ready. All those sweet Babies that have been killed over this passed years. God has them and they are safe with him. Life and Death are in the Hands of God and it is not our place to say who lives and who dies....One day all people will stand before the Throne and make an accounting of what they did in their lives. God will judge what each person did and what was in their hearts.........We as Believers MUST STAND UP OF WHAT IS RIGHT....

Fred Gazendam

Posted: February 17, 2009 11:46 PM

It is clear to me that to many people in the community have no idea about the precepts and statutes from the Holy Scriptures. The Lord God is not regarded as the Creator and loving Father of all mankind. Life and death is in His hand. I am 81 years old and have seen more of God's world than most people during my time with the merchant navy. No one in this world can convince our Heavenly Father that killing people by choice or any other means is acceptable.

Willem van Klinken (The Netherlands)

Posted: February 17, 2009 2:20 AM


It is not entirely correct that physician-assisted suicide is legal in the Netherlands. There have been four important legal cases with regard to this issue in The Netherlands. Two persons were convicted, two were acquitted. Assistance is punishable according to the Dutch High Court when someone is giving instructions that are clearly meant to be followed.

ann Olawunmi adesuyi (Registered User)

Posted: February 17, 2009 12:00 AM

Man decides who dies and who lives. This is why the Bible says that man's wisdom is foolishness before God. Most doctors don't believe in God's divine healing. Therefore I'm not supprise to hear all these bra-bra-bra of ending someone's life when they believe that there is no hope nor solution to the person's illness. I have seen many people been written off to die by doctors and later they were healed. I am one of them. Even my people have signed papers that will warrant my body to be sent to mortuary. But today I'm alive and very much healthy. Please let's give God a chance where doctors can not.

GABY	Posted: February 16, 2009 11:54 PM

I'm shocked and disappointed that in the poll associated with this topic, CT lumped "feeding tubes" in with respirators and other "medical technology" that can sometimes be removed thus allowing a patient to die. Do 76% of CT readers really think it's OK to withhold FOOD from a patient?! Does a majority of Christians now consider giving FOOD to a patient as "medical treatment" and not an basic obligation? Or does it just look that way because CT can't phrase a deadly SERIOUS queston properly?

E. Paul Imhof

Posted: February 16, 2009 9:29 PM

Some 70 years ago we were taught at home and in the Catholic Church to pray for a "good hour of death". My parents and their generation considered it more important to be prepared to meet our maker than to meddle in other people's life. There is no way to keep your neighbour from driving to Oregon or flying to Switzerland to end his life properly assisted. We can't prevent desperate neighbours from getting drunk to drive their car off a cliff or into a tree. Most fatal single car accidents are camouflaged suicides a spokesperson for our county told me off the record. It makes more sense to help distraught divorcees and jobless knowing no better way to provide for hungry kids. Let us also pray for polititians exploiting this sad issue like Berlusconi and the Catholic pastor who denied 3 children killed in a traffic accident burial in the local emetery because their parents are Jehova's witnesses. Please include me in your prayers too.

A daughter

Posted: February 16, 2009 7:51 PM

AFter Mom pulled out feeding tubes 3 times I made the heartbreaking decision to also remove IV fluids, in accordance with Catholic bishops' guidelines of moral principles re "terminal cancer patient whose death is immiment." She lingered 3 weeks, making peace with a very troubled past, revealing to me alone many painful secrets. Accompanying her was a holy journey for me; she had rejected me years ago and in the end, I, not my favored brother, was there. Suicide or mega-morphine would have prevented our bittersweet reconciliation and her cognizent release from the darknesses that haunted her. My psychologist said I took her to places no one else could have & in going with her, I, too, was released. I stayed with her still-warm body for hours, knowing she was at peace with Jesus. My brother took her money and didn't come to the funeral but I got the greater treasure from her. I look at life and death differently now. Thanks, Mom.

Anna	Posted: February 16, 2009 6:12 PM

We kill babies as a fetus, as they're being born, and while drinking and driving. So what's the problem with killing adults who are just in another stage of life. We all knew when this government decided that this government was God and allowed appointed supreme court judges to make murder legal that it would become easier and easier for legal killing even by oneself. We now have state government officials making these decisions. Next the local Sheriff will be allowed to make the decision as to who lives and dies. So what, cultures have been like this since the beginning. Why do we think we are any different than those who walked the earth centuries ago. And doctors don't take the Hippocratic Oath any more, you know, where they swear they will first do no harm, so what is the big deal about anybody taking their or someone else's life. Cultures have been doing this forever, deciding on who dies and who lives. We're no different, we have not come a long way baby

Ben	Posted: February 16, 2009 4:00 PM


We think that we are "playing God" when we terminate a life for valid reasons. Why don't we recognize that we are also "playing God" when we prolong a life by our technical efforts that God would be ending if left alone. The first act seems as ethically defensible as the second.

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