Wednesday, April 24, 2014

Wednesday of the Fourth Week of Easter

(Acts 12:24-13:5a; John 12: 44-50)

Physician-assisted suicide looms as a major issue today.  Modernity has been able to extend life, but as people age, they become more helpless.  Rather than giving costly care, some societies have chosen to assist those with terminal illness and irreversible insanity to end their lives.

The practice conflicts with Jesus’ word.  He begs his disciples to offer one another sacrificial love.  He demonstrated what this meant when he washed their dirty feet.  Certainly this would include caring for the terminally sick and the mentally destabilized.  Those who will not accept this responsibility are condemned by Jesus’ word.

But can Christians expect those who do not value sacrificial love in these cases to accept a civil ban on assisted suicide?  We believe that it is the best public policy.  A prohibition on taking human life not only values all human life highly; it also guards against an erosion of reasons for life-taking until it becomes arbitrary.  The injunction against taking innocent human life has served societies well for millennia. There is no proportionate reason for abandoning it today. 

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