CLAIM:
People who have not personally faced terminal illness or severe suffering should not pass judgment on those who consider assisted suicide.

REBUTTAL:
Claims of absolute autonomy always need greater scrutiny.

We value experience. We value the right to do our own thing without judgment. Neither, however, is absolute.

President Abraham Lincoln’s inexperience as a slave owner, trader, or slave did not disqualify him from making the right call about ending slavery. His Emancipation Proclamation was good because it was rooted in a higher ideal – even higher than experience.

Jefferson Davis, on the other hand, was very experienced in this matter. Before being elected as the provisional President of the Confederacy, Davis had owned over 100 slaves, and by the time the Civil War ended, he had sold at least two slaves. Yet, his more intimate experience with slavery did not make him right on the matter of slavery.

Some people feel justified in their choice to molest children, kill people they don’t like, steal from others, and so forth. Indeed, judging such actions as evil or deviant cannot be wrong just because someone wants to do something without judgment in another area.

My point is that experience and judgment both fall under a brighter light that invites scrutiny; otherwise, injustice, cruelty, and hardship would run wild.

The claim is problematic for two reasons: It is contradictory. Judging that assisted suicide should be autonomous and made without the involvement or “judgment” of others is a judgment in itself. The claim is no more valid than the opposing judgments it rejects.

The second problem is that pursuing death as the irrevocable solution should compel us to examine the issues that caused the decision of assisted suicide in the first place.

As God’s children, we have an objective and reliable source of authority on such things. We learn from His word that death is the consequence of wrongdoing (sin). The Bible says, “For the wages of sin is death” (Romans 3:23). Despite the reality that everyone sins and therefore everyone dies (Ecclesiastes 7:20; 1 Corinthians 15:22), it does not permit human beings to take the lives of others or their own lives without God’s expressed command (Exodus 20:13; Romans 13:8-10).

Every person is accountable to God and to others (Matthew 22:34-40). The ability to make choices and to act on those choices does not make the choices right, for the right to make choices is called freedom. Freedom, however, does not permit us to do wrong (Galatians 5:13; 1 Peter 2:16). God’s word (the Bible) is that standard for truth (John 17:17).

None of us live in a vacuum. Our words and actions directly and indirectly affect others. For that reason, however deeply personal a decision to self-murder may seem, it is much more than that. Our allegiance to God and others prevents us from using our freedom to act contrary to God’s will.

Non-Christians who might argue exemption from such a position must still wrestle with the arbitrariness of deciding what people can and cannot do. Permitting people to self-terminate fails to consider the plight of those who are led more by emotion than a sense of responsibility for others, which is a necessity in a social world. Also, claiming exemption from judgment is incompatible with a social world. We are in this together.