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 19th & early 20th
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.
