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One of the many issues involved in the advancement of modern medicine is what to do when a person is slowly dying and has no quality of life. Should a lethal injection be given to end their struggle? “Medical aid in dying,” or MAiD, has been accepted in Europe, Canada, and other places. As expected, there have been abuses, and for that reason, the European Court of Human Rights recently ruled that access to assisted suicide is not a human right.

Contrastingly, the Human Population Group has promoted assisted suicide and has had success in getting various American states to accept it. Now, the Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association (HPNA) has announced a policy change that allows hospice nurses to participate in assisted suicide under the MAiD euphemism. The statement reads: “Nursing care for patients considering MAiD and their families is crucial to ensure that patients and families are not overtly or inadvertently disenfranchised or stigmatized as they proceed with MAiD and that they experience a safe and comfortable death, free from complications.”

This is a highly complex issue. Keeping someone alive when there is no hope of survival and no quality of life can be very expensive. Do you wipe out your loved one’s financial resources by continuing life in these situations? When a person has Alzheimer’s and doesn’t know anyone but is otherwise healthy, do you administer assisted suicide if they had requested it when they were rational? These issues touch many of us and will increase as our population ages.

Proponents of medical aid in dying argue that since we euthanize animals when they are suffering, we should extend that same option to humans. One prominent supporter of medically assisted suicide is Peter Singer, who is the DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. Singer would not only support medical aid in dying but would require the euthanization of prisoners who have life sentences and mentally ill patients who are beyond help.

For Christians, there are grave concerns with medically assisted suicide. In 1 Corinthians 3:16-17, we read, “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God has His home in you? If any man ruins the temple of God, God shall ruin him, for the temple of God is sacred, and that is what you are.” When hospice nurses are allowed to administer “medical aid in dying,” how long will it be before they are required to do so regardless of their religious and ethical objections?

There are no easy answers for any of us in this issue, but it seems that with modern medicine and technology, there should be an option other than giving a human a lethal injection to end their lives.

— John N. Clayton © 2024
Reference: The Life Legal Defense Foundation publication Lifeline for Summer 2024, pages 6-7.

In June of 2016, Canada approved a law called MAID, which stands for “Medical Assistance In Dying.” It became the sixth country in the world to allow the practice, and there are nine states in the United States plus Washington D.C that have followed the Canadian model. Those who work in the field of medical assistance in dying tell us that there are three words they use in dealing with MAID. They are ACCEPT, ADAPT, and be at PEACE.

ACCEPTING the fact that you are going to die very soon is something that most people manage, but for some, it is accomplished more quickly than for others. One’s religious convictions or the lack of them can have a significant impact on when and how we accept death.

ADAPTING takes many forms and is frequently a function of how much pain we are in and how much our impending death affects those we love financially. Using MAID to avoid pain or to stop the loss of family finances is a growing adaption many people are choosing to make. A person’s medical and mental condition can affect how they adapt.

For a significant number of people, being able to donate organs to others is part of being at PEACE with one’s approaching death. An ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) victim named Fred Gillis said it this way: “ALS, you can’t take this away. We’re going to give life to other people.”

There are a wide variety of problems associated with MAID. The laws in Canada and the U.S. make it very difficult to give organs away if you are terminal yourself. If you have active cancer, you are ineligible to donate organs. If you die too slowly, you are not eligible. Even if you are on life support and you decide to pull the plug, about 30% of the time, the organs become nonviable. If donating an organ hastens your death, there is a “The Dead Donor Rule” that makes it impossible for you to donate organs. Fred Gillis was able to donate two kidneys, his lungs, and his liver when he died in April of 2018. The first 30 MAID donors in Canada gave 74 organs, which meant many lives were spared.

Medical assistance in dying is a tough issue for Christians. God gives life, and God makes it clear that the Holy Spirit lives in us. (See 1 Corinthians 3:16.) The need for organ donors is enormous, and allowing people to find peace as death approaches is also huge. It is hard to be rational when we or someone we love is facing death. It is essential to understand that a person’s death is when their soul departs, not necessarily when the physical organs stop working. As Christians, we must study and intelligently discuss this subject.

The data in this article is from Scientific American, May 2020, page 23.