Is There a Place for Mercy Killing?

by Michael Cassidy

The recent decision by the Netherlands Government to legalise euthanasia or mercy killing has put this whole difficult issue once again before the world - and indeed before South Africa. It's worth pausing reflectively in our tracks here in South Africa before we all walk down the Netherlands road to mercy killing. And to help us reflect on this difficult issue there are some key principals I'd like to consider today.

Sanctity of Life

The first principal is the sanctity of life. This is the view that all human life is sacred, holy, God-created and God-valued, and it is a foundational principle for those who oppose euthanasia. Believing that all humans are created in God's image provides every person with inherent, inviolate value and dignity, no matter how old or young, sick or healthy.
For medical people, the sanctity of life principle makes motivation a critical factor in the euthanasia debate. If a doctor with the sole motivation of alleviating pain allows doses of morphine which he knows in cumulative terms will ultimately be fatal, he is not violating the sanctity of life because his motive is not to bring about death but rather to alleviate pain. If, however, the medical doctor administers the lethal dose with the express motivation of killing the patient, he does violate the sanctity of life. The distinction may be subtle but it is critically important - the one motivation being morally valid and the other morally perilous.

The Sovereignty of God in Christ Over Life and Death

The second principal has to do with the sovereignty of God over life and death. God is ultimately and finally the one in charge. "This is God's call," said the doctor to me some while back when my mother was dying. Said the Lord to Hezekiah: "I will add 15 years to your life" (II Kings 20:6). The time of Hezekiah's birth and death was God's call. The Psalmist knew God 's sovereignty as well when he affirmed: "My times are in Thy hand" (Ps. 31:15). In other words, both our life destiny and our death destiny are in His hands. To interfere with that is no light matter.

The Dealings of God with the Dying

Another principal involves the mysterious ways which God uses to minister to those who are dying. A senior nursing sister once told me of the deep sense she had when her husband was dying that God was doing deep things within him. Spending hours and days at the bedside of my dying mother, I also had the profound sense of eternal things happening with her right up to the last minutes - though both she and I were longing for weeks beforehand for her release. To interrupt that eternal business, to terminate someone's life prematurely, is to step dangerously and recklessly into God's sacred territory.

The Role in the Christian Life of Suffering

Then there is the principal of the role of suffering. No one says suffering is good. It is evil. It is part of our fallen estate. But it is not a biblical principle to avoid all suffering at all costs. In reality, our faith is often deepened and matured by the trials and sufferings that come our way. Take the seemingly inexplicable sufferings of Job. We now know that these had meaning in God's plan. When we seek to end someone's suffering by ending their life, we are ruling out the possibility of God's healing work in their lives and ending any chance of God completing a work in the person that may only be completed through suffering.

The Death Experiment

Euthanasia in the Netherlands has only just been fully legalized. However, it has been in various stages of legalization in the Netherlands over the past several years. So beyond looking at the principles already mentioned, we can actually already gauge just how euthanasia has affected the people of the Netherlands. We can ask questions like "Is Euthanasia really being used in the best interests of the people and has it brought about comfort in the minds of those who fear suffering a long and lingering death?" This would take a second programme to really delve into, but before I finish today I'd like to tell you about a recent Dutch governmental review which revealed that 45% of hospital-based assisted deaths in Holland in the last few years have occurred without patient or family consent. This has happened even though it is illegal there to "mercy" kill someone without personal or family consent. And it is this potential abuse of euthanasia by medical doctors which causes deep ripples of disturbance and fear throughout the Dutch population, and particularly with Dutch elderly. When your doctor is given the legal right to terminate your life, which goes in direct contradiction to the Hippocratic oath doctors have been bound by for hundreds of year, is it no surprise that a 1990 Dutch study done in nursing homes revealed that more than half feared being euthanised against their will. Even beyond that, 9 out of every 10 people in this same survey opposed euthanasia all together.

Conclusion

And so my friends, neither Christian conscience, nor the Bible, nor precedent from current practice can sanction active, deliberate euthanasia. Its irrevocability, its interference with God as Lord of life and death, its interruption of what the dying person may be doing in the Spirit for others, its terminating of the sufferer's eternal business with his or her Maker, its violation of the Sanctity of Life, its destruction of the trust that needs to be in place between patient in doctor, all these make euthanasia unacceptable. May we never legalize this in our nation.

I add below a scripture on Mercy killing in which David interprets the old testament law on murder to apply also to mercy killing. Since scripture provides no criticism of Davids judgement, while it does condemn his passive killing of Uriah the Hittite (by putting into danger in battle) - I would take his interpretation as correct. i.e. Mercy killing is murder. One couldn't get a more extreme case of 'mercy killing' as that of the death of Saul. Ancient war customs often included terrible tortures of enemy leaders - which Saul probably sought to avoid.

2SA 1:8 "He asked me, `Who are you?' " `An Amalekite,' I answered. 2SA 1:9 "Then he said to me, `Stand over me and kill me! I am in the throes of death, but I'm still alive.' 2SA 1:10 "So I stood over him and killed him, because I knew that after he had fallen he could not survive. And I took the crown that was on his head and the band on his arm and have brought them here to my lord." 2SA 1:11 Then David and all the men with him took hold of their clothes and tore them. 12 They mourned and wept and fasted till evening for Saul and his son Jonathan, and for the army of the LORD and the house of Israel, because they had fallen by the sword. 2SA 1:13 David said to the young man who brought him the report, "Where are you from?" "I am the son of an alien, an Amalekite," he answered. 2SA 1:14 David asked him, "Why were you not afraid to lift your hand to destroy the LORD's anointed?" 2SA 1:15 Then David called one of his men and said, "Go, strike him down!" So he struck him down, and he died. 16 For David had said to him, "Your blood be on your own head. Your own mouth testified against you when you said, `I killed the LORD's anointed.' "