Right to die

Friendly debate
I distinctly remember having a friendly argument with a seatmate on the issue of euthanasia. The debate, of course, was prompted by my question: would you choose to die if, by some freak accident, you're paralyzed from the head down?

I was against it, as I was arguing for the "sanctity of life." But I'm afraid the debate didn't resolve anything. We were still as hard-headed as when we had started and just about as clueless about the subject we had argued about.

I realized that physician-assisted suicide—or mercy killing or euthanasia—is very controversial, as most ethical cases in medicine tend to be. I wondered then what the Biblical response should be in such cases.

The right to die?
Is it consistent with God's Word and with moral standards to help someone die because the patient is complaining of too much pain? Can we actually choose when and how to die, given the fact that we have autonomy? Should families always choose to sustain the lives of their relatives in "persistent vegetative state"? The stream of questions was overflowing.

When I found the book, The Right To Die?: Caring Alternatives to Euthanasia, I immediately grabbed it. It's written by Mark Blocher, a pastor and bioethicist. The book takes on a sound Christian worldview, citing Biblical principles and examples, to explain why physician-assisted suicide can never be justified. It was, for me, an eye-opener, a book that has shattered some assumptions I might have had before.

The book argues that "there is no disgrace in human mortality, that human dignity can be cared for and respected in the midst of life's worst experiences." It also rallies for the fact that every dying person should be given these three promises:

You will not be a burden to us.
You will not die in pain.
You will not die alone.

Blocher therefore advocates for hospice or palliative care for the dying.

Outlined
The book starts out by outlining a Biblical definition of death. The second chapter deals with Jack Kevorkian and the horrors he has caused. The third deals with the abuse of language to justify assisted suicide. The chapter I liked best is the fifth chapter where Blocher answers the question on whether death is a right, a duty, or an inevitability. The next chapter deals with the issue of having natural limits on personal freedom—this time, on death. The other chapters deal with the role of physicians at the end of life. In the penultimate chapter, Blocher doesn't veer away from answering hard questions on euthanasia and medical futility.

Sound understanding
The book has been a great help to me. The perspectives are sound and Biblical, the reasoning is logical, the examples are thorough. I couldn't recommend a better book on the issue of physician-assisted suicide than this.