CLAIM:
Adults diagnosed with terminal illnesses or debilitating conditions like ALS have the right to seek relief from suffering in their final days. These individuals should be empowered to request assistance from medical professionals to facilitate a peaceful passing in a tranquil environment. This approach stands in contrast to spending one’s last moments in a clinical hospital setting, encumbered by medical equipment and potentially neglected by overworked healthcare staff preoccupied with other patients or administrative tasks.
REBUTTAL:
In polemics (debate), leading with a strong emotional argument is common, especially when the logic does not hold up. This claim contains inherent problems.
Adults & Rights
The claim begins with “adults” and centers on “right.” Both words are far more potent than the claim suggests.
A genuine “right” is universal. In other words, to suggest that there is an entitlement or right to assisted suicide for adults only hides the implication that everyone, young and old, fit or disabled, or mentally controlled or uncontrolled, has this right. Let’s talk about children.
American educator and author Grace Llewellyn wrote in her “The Teenage Liberation Handbook” about the legal discrimination against young people:
Regardless of what the law or your teachers have to say about this, you are as human as anyone over the age of 18 or 21, yet, ‘minors’ are one of the most oppressed groups of people in the world, and certainly the most discriminated against legally.1Grace Llewellyn, “The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education,” Lowry House Publishers, 1991.
The argument for legalized infanticide (the killing of born children) often uses this same logic. If assisted suicide is a legal right for adults, and all people are entitled to the same rights, then parents should be able to exercise this right on behalf of their children. If parents presume their children would not want the life they have, they could authorize its termination.
The claim, therefore, is about much more than just the exceptional case of death by Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), which accounts for 0.005% of all U.S. deaths.2https://tinyurl.com/24st2jxa (accessed 1-28-25) If we want to accept the emotional argument of permitting a right to assisted suicide, we must be willing to accept where the logic leads.
The Christian Perspective of “Rights”
The Christian faith subordinates rights to a higher principle of service to God and others. A brief study of Matthew 5 illustrates that point.
Matthew 5 begins with the beatitudes (vv. 1-12), which pronounce a spirit of blessedness amidst hardship. It reminds God’s children that the world is watching, for they are lights on a hill (vv. 13-16), in which the way we live prompts others to “glorify your Father in heaven.”
Jesus reminds everyone of their duty to observe the law (vv. 17-20) but then expands that understanding by demonstrating the attitude of the heart can make one a lawbreaker, even if a crime was not committed (vv. 21-37).
Then, he subordinates rights to service:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. (Matthew 5:38–42)
These verses violate our sense of justice and rights when we live according to the world. We want to think first of ourselves and our right to be safe, treated justly, and free of coercion. Instead, the call to serve supersedes the entitlement to rights.
The Apostle Paul expressed the same sentiment when he wrote:
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus. (Philippians 2:3–5)
Regardless of whether or whatever rights the world has established, Christians look first to the avenue for service. Christians serve others by alleviating suffering and hardship (2 Corinthians 1:3-4; Galatians 6:2; Colossians 3:12).
The Path to Relief
As Scripture is not silent on our responsibility to relieve suffering, it is also not silent in the instructions on providing such relief. We have the following examples:
- The Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37): We show compassion regardless of social standing, religion, or nationality. Relieving suffering involves bandaging wounds and providing the respite necessary for a full recovery.
- Healing the Paralytic (Mark 2:1-12): Jesus demonstrates an attentive ear to a paralyzed man’s needs and brings healing.
And we have the following instructions:
- Pray for their healing and comfort (James 5:14)
- Provide emotional support (Romans 12:15)
- Provide practical support (1 Kings 17:7-16)
- Care for family (1 Timothy 5:8)
- Care for those you know (Galatians 6:10)
- Care for strangers (Matthew 25:35-36)
Conspicuously absent is any endorsement of killing, self-killing, and assistance in dying to alleviate suffering.
The Unique Status of Human Life
Evolutionary thinking has permeated our culture. It is common to read or hear of human life described as
- Human animals
- More evolved species
- Higher primates
And the actions of human beings are being explained as
- Our caveman brains
- Our primitive instincts
- Our evolutionary programming
As a result, we quickly forget the unique status of human beings. When God created human life, he described it differently than the creation of all other plant and animal life:
Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:26–27)
In that initial creation of the first human life, the “image” of God is described as a state of understanding and holiness (Colossians 3:10) in which harmony exists between the Creator and his premier creation.
In other portions of Scripture, the image of God is a more general term to describe the uniqueness of human life (Genesis 9:6; 1 Corinthians 11:7).
It is that uniqueness that brings the prohibition to terminate life. God, as the Creator, claims authority over life and death (Deuteronomy 32:39; 1 Samuel 2:6), and therefore, apart from his specific command, we are not to take life (Exodus 20:13). Committing murder, self-killing, or assistance in killing is the antithesis to the command Christians have to love one another (Romans 13:9).
How We Die
The claim supports its perspective by giving a horrible description of death. No one would want to be neglected, ignored, and left to suffer.
The solution is not to end life but to address the deficiencies in caring for life. No biblical mandate demands us to keep throwing technology and medicine at every malady. There is, however, a clear mandate to care for those in need and not to take life or seek assistance in taking life. For those reasons, where suffering occurs because of neglect, we ought to step in to bring comfort, even at our inconvenience. When we are powerless to serve, we should speak up to make the conditions known (Proverbs 31:8).
Death is inevitable (Ecclesiastes 9:2; Romans 5:12), and life is an opportunity (Hebrews 9:27; 2 Corinthians 5:10). As Christ acted for our eternal comfort, we act for the comfort of others, even if we must suffer for it (1 Peter 2:20-21). We are not to usurp God’s authority over life and death but to feed, house, visit, care, and love others to alleviate their suffering. That should be the focus of our efforts.
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