My latest: why Christians oppose Euthanasia, in CT
I’m in Christianity Today this morning with a piece called “Why Christians Oppose Euthanasia.” It is exactly what its title suggests. Here are two early paragraphs:
The church’s moral teaching has always held that murder—defined as the intentional taking of innocent life—is intrinsically evil. It follows that actively intending the death of an elderly or sick human being and then deliberately bringing about that death through some positive action, such as the administration of drugs, is always and everywhere morally wrong.
This ethical argument is very similar to the one Christians make about abortion. We could modify the oft-quoted line from Dr. Seuss—“A person’s a person no matter how small”—by substituting old or ill for “small.” (Other substitutions also suggest themselves: smart, abled, sexed, or hued.) To be sure, there are relevant differences between active euthanasia and, for example, removing a brain-dead person from life support. There are none, however, between administering fatal drugs and offering or prescribing them: Both directly facilitate the intended death of a patient under a doctor’s medical care.
