Traditionally the fight to defend the sanctity of life centers on the early years on life. Recently, those in the eleventh hour of life are at risk too.
Dr. David Stevens discusses the disturbing normalization of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide in the world today.
Some states in America have legalized physician assisted suicide. According to Dr. Stevens it concerningly easy to receive help from medical professionals in taking your own life. These developments are giving those who don’t deem their life worth living the ability to end it.
“You could go to the nursing home to see your mom and find the bed empty and turn to the nurse and they could say, ‘didn’t they tell you, the doctor helped her kill herself last night.’”
“You can imagine the anger and the sadness they would have, wondering if we visited her enough, did she think we loved her, was she concerned about the money?
Physician-assisted suicide can also lead to abuse of elders when family members who are greedy or tired of caregiving succumb to the temptation to release themselves of the burden of caregiving.
Stevens tells the story of a mother who experienced her daughter begin to drop subtle hints that she could end her own life.
The right to die will quickly become the duty to die. As soon as elderly people become a burden to their family, they could soon be expected to end their own lives.
“I’ll do the noble thing and I’ll get out of the way.”
In Canada, any amount of perceived suffering is grounds for someone choosing to commit suicide by lethal-injection.
“This is all based on suffering, and suffering is subjective. You don’t have to have a terminal illness, you can have a psychiatric problem, and you can just want this for no good reason.”
It is impossible to tell someone that they aren’t suffering enough to allow them to die, because suffering is completely subjective and there is no way to measure it.
“One of the most common reasons people do it is because they are depressed, they’ve been socially isolated.”
The sanctity of human life is being disregarded all across the spectrum of age. Christians need to stand up against a culture that seeks to decide when people are no longer worth being kept alive.
