Some Facts on the Sins of Euthanasia & Assisted Suicide

 

EUTHANASIA:

Definitions regarding our rising Culture of Death

(Pastor Terry L. Reese; Valley GBC, Armagh, PA; 6/18/23)

 

In today’s world, in which medical ethics have been corrupted by the abortion culture, the matter of euthanasia has become an increasingly contentious and disturbing topic. Today, a variety of nations (e.g., Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Australia, Canada, Columbia, Spain, and Portugal) legally allow for active, voluntary euthanasia (defined below). In the U.S., assisted suicide is legal in 10 jurisdictions, including the District of Columbia, as well as the states of California, Colorado, Oregon, Vermont, New Mexico, Maine, New Jersey, Hawaii, & Washington.

 

I. Euthanasia Defined (Gk.: εὐθανασία, lit. ”good death”): the practice of deliberate intervention with the express intent of terminating a human life in order to eliminate pain and suffering.

 

II. Categories of Euthanasia.

a. Relative to a patient’s consent:

1) Voluntary: The patient freely gives their open consent, requesting death.

2) Non-voluntary: The patient is unable to give open consent due to some incapacity (e.g., a comatose state), or else due to their status as a minor (allowed in some western countries).

3) Involuntary: The patient expressly denies or consciously withholds consent—but is still euthanized (e.g., Nazi Germany)!!!

 

b. Relative to the activity involved:

1) Active: directly causing a person’s death through the active administration of some lethal means (e.g., a lethal injection); sometimes referred to as “aggressive” euthanasia.

 

2) Passive: death is deliberately brought about through the withholding of “common treatment” (e.g., the withholding of food & fluids, thereby resulting in death-by-starvation).

 

NOTE: Passive Euthanasia should be differentiated from simply “allowing nature to take its course,” in which some extraordinary treatment that is no longer of any benefit to the patient (and thus only serves to increase their agony) is suspended. Unlike Passive Euthanasia, the latter course does NOT involve a deliberate act of homicide or suicide, and is thus is not necessarily sinful.

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The Dark Legacy of Euthanasia & the Perversion of Medicine

A Brief Chronology

(Pastor Terry L. Reese; Valley GBC, Armagh, PA; 6/23/23)

 

o   Doctors of pagan antiquity routinely practiced euthanasia and performed abortions as part of their “services.”

 

o   Hippocrates of Kos (460-370 BC), a Greek doctor, founded a new school of medicine that opposed & disapproved of both abortion and euthanasia. His ethical medical code (“FIRST, do no harm!”) ultimately came to predominate in the western Christian world.

 

o   With the rise of the Gilded Age & Progressive Eras, euthanasia seriously entered U.S. public discourse in the late 19^th & early 20^th centuries, sharply questioning the traditional sanctity-of-life ethic of historic western Christian civilization.

 

o   In 1870, Samuel Williams proposed the use of a cocktail of anesthetics & morphine to intentionally end a suffering patient's life.

 

o   The notorious atheist lecturer Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899) called for euthanasia to end the suffering of terminally ill patients.

 

o   Felix Adler, a prominent educator, called in 1891 for the use of lethal drugs on terminally ill patients upon their voluntary request.

 

o   While much of the Progressive Era debate focused on voluntary euthanasia, calls for involuntary euthanasia were also vocalized. 

 

o   1900: W. Duncan McKim, a prominent NY physician (as well as Doctor of Philosophy), published “Heredity & Human Progress,” suggesting that those with severe inherited defects & mental issues, as well as epileptics, drunkards, and criminals, should be “humanely” killed with carbonic gas.

 “The surest, the simplest, the kindest, and most humane means for preventing reproduction among those whom we deem unworthy of this high privilege, is a gentle, painless death; and this should be administered not as a punishment, but as an expression of enlightened pity for the victims—too defective by nature to find true happiness in life—and as a duty toward the community and toward our own offspring.”--W. Duncan McKim

o   In 1906, the Ohio legislature seriously considered the legalization of voluntary euthanasia—but the bill failed to make it out of committee.

 

o   The 1930’s saw a strong revival of interest & support for euthanasia.

 

o   1938: The Euthanasia Society of America (ESA) was formed, which lobbied for both the voluntary and involuntary euthanasia of people with severe disabilities, as well as for forced sterilization.

 

o   1939-45: Adolf Hitler & his SS doctors euthanize some 300,000 people against their will (physically & mentally handicapped, elderly, mentally ill, terminally ill, etc.)—including many children.

 

o   The immediate postwar era saw a decline in public support for euthanasia following the criminal abuses of the Third Reich.

 

o   Interest revives in the 60’s & 70’s with the rise of the “right-to-die” movement, and with subsequent high-profile cases—e.g., Karen Ann Quinlan, Terri Schaivo, Roswell Gilbert, Dr. Kevorkian. Various nations now allow physician-assisted-suicide & other forms of euthanasia.