How compassionate is it to let people end their lives when they choose? That\u2019s the wrong question.<\/p>\n
Canadians, or at least Canadian media elites, seem intent on creating a real-life version of what novelist P.D. James, in her novel \u201cThe Children of Men,\u201d called \u201cquietus\u201d: that is, state-sanctioned mass suicide of the those deemed to be a burden to the rest of society.<\/p>\n
John Stonestreet told you about a recent article in Maclean\u2019s magazine (think Time or Newsweek for our friends north of the border) that asked, \u201cShould doctors be paid a premium (for) assisting deaths?\u201d The answer was a resounding \u201cYes!\u201d Without such a \u201cpremium,\u201d what Canada calls \u201cmedical assistance in dying,\u201d \u201cwill exist in theory only, and not in practice.\u201d<\/p>\n
That was just the beginning for Maclean\u2019s. The August 15, 2017 issue told the story of a palliative care doctor who decided that, in addition to providing end-of-life care to dying patients, he would assist them with the actual dying.<\/p>\n
Not surprisingly, the story was wrapped in gauzy haze that made everyone involved appear noble beyond words: think noted humanitarian Albert Schweitzer, instead of Jack Kevorkian.<\/p>\n
There was no hint of where this ersatz brand of \u201ccompassion\u201d could lead. For that, you only had to look back a few months in the magazine\u2019s archives. A few months earlier, an article in the magazine argued that, although \u201cIt may make some people understandably uncomfortable … extending the right to assisted dying to the mentally ill is a compassionate solution.\u201d<\/p>\n
I told you about the move to extend the so-called \u201cright to die\u201d to mentally ill people back in May. I told you back then that it was a terrible idea, and now that I\u2019ve seen the rationale fully set forth, I\u2019m looking for a word that\u2019s stronger than \u201cterrible.\u201d<\/p>\n
The piece was written by Daniel Munro of the Conference Board of Canada whose stated goal is to \u2014 and I\u2019m not making this up \u2014 build \u201ca better future for Canadians by making our economy and society more dynamic and competitive.\u201d According to Munro, it\u2019s \u201cnot clear why\u201d the principle that justifies euthanasia for the terminally ill \u201cshould apply any less to people with mental illness.\u201d<\/p>\n
That \u201cprinciple\u201d isn\u2019t compassion, which comes from the Latin for \u201cto suffer with.\u201d No, the principle Munro and others cite is autonomy \u2014 \u201dallowing individuals to choose the time and manner of their deaths, just as we allow people to choose how they will lead their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
The New Testament Greek word for compassion is \u201c splagchnizomai.\u201d It means being moved in our guts, our bowels, in response to the suffering of others. But today, according to Macleans anyway, compassion means being careful not to violate someone\u2019s autonomy.<\/p>\n
This enshrinement of autonomy goes a long way toward explaining why the \u201cright to die\u201d will not and cannot be limited to the terminally ill. If you begin with the assumption that people have a right to live and die as they please, then there\u2019s no good reason to limit lethal medical assistance to only one group of suffering people.<\/p>\n
So we need to remember, as I told you in my earlier broadcast, that when a mentally-ill person says \u201cplease let me die,\u201d you can never be certain whether it\u2019s the person speaking or the mental illness speaking. What matters to Macleans is not interfering with how a person chooses to end their life. And that, my friends, is the exact opposite of a Christian worldview.<\/p>\n
In James\u2019 novel, state-sanctioned quietus was the product of a society literally without a future. In Canada\u2019s case, it\u2019s being championed by people who claim to be working for a better future. Whatever the setting, compassion is the last thing we should call it.<\/p>\n
________<\/p>\n
Copyright (c) 2017 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. “BreakPoint” is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
How compassionate is it to let people end their lives when they choose? That\u2019s the wrong question. Canadians, or at least Canadian media elites, seem intent on creating a real-life version of what novelist P.D. James, in her novel \u201cThe Children of Men,\u201d called \u201cquietus\u201d: that is, state-sanctioned mass suicide of the those deemed to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4576,679,1045,460,1375],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7350"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7350\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}