Euthanasia & Assisted Suicide?

California’s legalization of assisted suicide is the latest news in the trend to legitimize killing the very ill, the despairing and the depressed.  Not enough religious voices have spoken against it and in defense of legally protecting vulnerable human life at all stages.  The Catholic Archbishop of Los Angeles has denounced it.  So too it has Southern Baptist leader Russell Moore, along with California mega church pastor Rick Warren, recalling his own son’s suicide.

With some drafting help from Pope John Paul II and inspiration from John Wesley, I’m submitting this resolution for next year’s United Methodist General Conference with hopes that my denomination will speak for defending the vulnerable:

Laws permitting and popular attitudes supporting assisted suicide and euthanasia are increasingly common in the United States and Europe. Such laws and stances are at odds with historic Christian teaching and the legacy of John Wesley, which stress the sacredness and importance of all human life as God’s first gift, including for the very sick, the terminally ill, the depressed and despairing, the disabled and mentally impaired, and all persons, especially the poor and marginalized, who may think their lives unimportant, unappreciated or unbearable.

Modern secular culture prioritizes pleasure, comfort, assurance, autonomy and affirmation, while often viewing death as senseless and suffering as unacceptable. Western secularism has rejected humanity’s relationship with God and made humans autonomously their own judges about the value of human life. It also is discomfited by human vulnerability and mutual interdependence. Technology and advanced medicine, while divine gifts for alleviating suffering and prolonging life, have too often created false expectations about endless good health and human control. Vulnerable persons are often left believing they are hindrances to others.

These trends and attitudes are legitimizing assisted suicide and euthanasia as a means for self autonomy, avoiding suffering, and ending lives that on secular terms are no longer deemed worthwhile. In modern societies that glorify youth, beauty, success, vigor and material acquisition, there is also the growing isolation of the elderly, the very ill, the mentally disturbed, and disabled persons, who too often are left to believe they are unwanted.

Euthanasia is different from extraordinary and disproportionate medical intervention artificially to prolong physical life. It is also distinct from palliative care to alleviate avoidable physical discomfort at life’s natural end. Euthanasia is the deliberate and morally unacceptable killing of human persons, each of whom is created in the image of and belongs to God. Assistance for suicide rejects God’s loving care for all persons and renounces the obligation of justice and charity towards neighbors, communities and society as a whole. Most egregiously it rejects God’s kind and wise lordship over life and death.

Too often euthanasia and assisted suited are portrayed as compassionate responses to suffering. But authentic compassion strives to share in the suffering of the afflicted, not to end their lives. Killing or assisting in the killing of the vulnerable perverts the loving, God-ordained responsibilities, respect and patience that are supposed to guide families, friendships and doctor-patient relationships.

Across history, and in our own time, the powerful have exploited euthanasia to eliminate persons considered undesirable or costly. No earthly authority can rightfully arrogate to itself an arbitrary power over life and death that belongs exclusively to God. Such claims and powers are profoundly unjust, corrupt, inhumane, and ungodly. Every just society will prioritize the protection of the weak from the strong.

In contrast with modern secularism’s commodification of human life, the church has always spoken to the deepest reaches of the human heart by responding to despair and suffering with compassion, sympathy and loving support. Christianity teaches that every life has eternal significance and has a sacred destiny authored by God in Christ. The suffering, death and resurrection of Christ offer meaning, dignity and hope to every person who despairs, suffers and faces their own Calvary. God’s plan for each person, contrary to secularism’s too frequent dismissal of human life, offers beauty and majesty.

The church stands in compassionate solidarity with all ailing and despairing persons tempted by or vulnerable to assisted suicide and euthanasia. We recall that God often turns the evil of suffering into good and closeness to Him who also suffered, most supremely on the Cross. The Body of Christ is called endlessly to minister to the ill, depressed, disabled and dying, giving them hope and preparing them, with all persons, for the hour they and we will meet God, at a time He chooses.

Methodists, as the spiritual descendants of John Wesley, who ministered to the very least and most neglected, have a special calling to love, support, and defend persons tempted by or vulnerable to assisted suicide or euthanasia. Our solidarity with these persons entails both direct ministry and affirmation of laws that defend them. We reject the legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia. Instead we affirm all exertions through families, home care givers, the church, civil society, the medical profession, hospice care, and government to protect, alleviate the suffering of, offer companionship to, rescue from loneliness, and offer hope and dignity to the very sick, the despairing and depressed, the mentally troubled, the disabled, the elderly and terminally ill. With them, and in them, we experience Jesus Christ more fully.