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.
