Theology Thursday: What's the problem with assisted suicide?

Welcome to Theology Thursday! Theology is the study of God, his relation to the world, and our relation to him. I hope these newsletters help enhance your faith and deepen your love for God and his people, the church.

Today's question:
What's the problem with assisted suicide?

Pastor Brady's thoughts:
Last week, the Illinois Senate passed a bill that would allow “medical assistance in dying” (MAiD). The legislation grants patients who have been diagnosed with a terminal illness and are expected to live six months or less with the legal ability to enlist the help of a professional to purposefully end their lives immediately, rather than wait it out until their natural death.  As the bill already passed the Illinois House in May, it now heads to Governor Pritzker, who can either sign it into law, veto it, or let it sit for 60 days wherein it becomes law without his signature. Illinois would join several other states who have passed similar laws or are considering doing so. 

In recent years, our culture has begun to think of assisted suicide as compassionate and dignified, even humane. In some sense, this is understandable. Unlike abortion, which ends an innocent human life and in the process causes pain and suffering (for the baby and the mother), MAiD purports to reduce pain and suffering by ending a human life deemed to be undesirable. Compared to months or even years of declining health and the trauma of sometimes agonizing discomfort, the prospect of just going ahead and dying seems more appealing than dragging it out.  

I totally understand why many non-Christians arrive at this conclusion. If I weren’t a believer, I probably would too. 

This issue is often framed around personal autonomy, relief from suffering, and the desire for control at the end of life. These are real concerns, and Christians should approach the conversation with genuine empathy. People who consider assisted suicide are often afraid - afraid of pain, of losing independence, and of burdening others. Each of these are legitimate realities, but among the other problems with this thinking is that there is no such thing as a life free of burdening others. 

We are born dependent on our parents (and/or other competent adults) for life, we often spend our last few years dependent on others for life, and there’s a whole lot of life in the middle where we are dependent on others - if not for literal survival, at least for everything a half-step above it. As Christian writer Leah Libresco Sargeant puts it, “Dependence is not an aberration in human life; it’s not an unnatural state. No one is a fully autonomous being. Being a burden on one another is an unavoidable fact of life - and it’s a feature, not a bug. God designed us to rely on each other. Burdens are - or can be - a blessing. It is our ties to each other that give rise to the intimacy of our love.”

The calculation of trying to determine whether a season of hardship is worth enduring is, I think, impossible to answer with any moral or ethical clarity absent an informed Christian worldview. Thankfully, we have one, and though we can appreciate the temptation to think otherwise, our faith tells us that life is a gift from God, and we are not free to take it into our own hands.

At the heart of the Christian vision of human life is the belief that every person is made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). Human dignity is not earned by being useful, independent, healthy, or comfortable. It is given, bestowed by the creator who shaped us and breathed life into us. Because life comes from God, it belongs to God. The book of Job reminds us, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised” (Job 1:21). To intentionally end an innocent human life—even our own—is to declare a position of ultimate authority that scripture reserves for God alone.

Some argue that assisted suicide is an act of mercy, that helping someone avoid suffering is a loving choice. Yet the Bible never suggests that suffering makes a life less valuable. Nor does it imply that the purpose of life is to avoid pain at all costs. In fact, scripture teaches the opposite: suffering can shape us, refine us, and draw us nearer to Christ. Paul writes, “We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character…” (Romans 5:3–4). We should never romanticize or minimize suffering. It is often tragic and terrible. But removing suffering by removing the sufferer is not mercy—it is a surrender to despair.

The Christian alternative is compassion—not the compassion of ending life, but the compassion of accompanying life. The word “compassion” means “to suffer with.” Jesus did not avoid suffering or run from the suffering of others; He entered into it. He sat with the sick, the lonely, the dying. He touched lepers. He wept at graves. Christians imitate Christ best not by eliminating pain, but by refusing to let anyone suffer alone.

One of the most troubling features of legal assisted suicide is how quickly it expands. In countries and states where it has been introduced, eligibility has widened—from those with terminal diagnoses, to those with chronic disease, to those with disabilities, and in some places, even to those with depression. Once the idea is accepted that some lives are not worth living, it becomes hard to say where that reasoning should stop. If we determine that death is an appropriate therapy for suffering, the question becomes: how could we logically deny it for anyone? Why make anyone - of any age, diagnosis, prognosis, or circumstance - suffer when they’d rather die?
 
We quickly see how dangerous this becomes. It’s hard to imagine a slippery slope more steep than this one. 

The elderly begin to feel pressure. People with disabilities hear a dark whisper that their care is “too costly.” Families wonder whether they are being selfish to hold on. The logic of assisted suicide subtly shifts the cultural moral calculus: instead of “Your life is precious,” we begin to say, “Your life is only as valuable as you believe it is.”

But the Christian story is different. It tells us that every life, even in its final days or its frailest moments, still has purpose. The sick reveal our calling to love. The dying teach us to number our days. The weak invite us to discover our strength in service. When a church cares for the suffering, it bears witness to the God who never abandons his people.

There is also hope in our proclamation. For Christians, death is not defeat. Christ has conquered death. Because of the resurrection, we need not take death into our own hands. We can face death - even death preceded by very difficult days - with courage, trusting that it is not the end of our story. We do not control the moment of our passing, because we do not fear what lies beyond it. 1st Corinthians 15:54-58:
 
When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?”

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

So what should we do?

Love, listen, stay near. Support hospice and palliative care. Bring meals, hold hands, pray in silence, and cry with those who suffer. Teach our children, our neighbors, and ourselves that the value of a life is not measured in productivity, independence, or ease, but in the unchanging love of the God who made us.

Legal debates will continue, and Christians must participate in them. But the most powerful argument we have is the witness of our lives: to be a community in which no one suffers alone, no one is forgotten, and every person—especially the weak—is honored as a gift from God.

Life is sacred. Not because it is easy, but because it is given.
 
TO KNOW GOD AND TO MAKE HIM KNOWN!
- Pastor Brady

Have a question for Theology Thursday? Send an email to office@minierchristian.org and we'll respond, or we'll include in a future Theology Thursday Buffet.