by Jim Denison, Breakpoint, July 2, 2015
Laura is a 24-year-old in Belgium who plans to die by euthanasia this summer. She is not terminally ill. Rather, she explains that she has wanted to die ever since she was a child. “Life, that’s not for me,” she says. She has been approved for death by lethal injection. The chairman of Belgium’s federal euthanasia commission recently stated that 50 to 60 psychiatric patients like Laura are euthanized each year.
Belgium legalized euthanasia in 2002. Last year it became the first nation to legalize child euthanasia. According to The New England Journal of Medicine, Belgian doctors also “hasten the death” of patients “without an explicit request.” More than 1,000 patients a year are euthanized in this way. As Cambridge professor Jack Keown explains, “If a doctor thinks death would benefit the patient, why should the doctor deny the patient that benefit merely because the patient is incapable of asking for it?”
More countries are asking similar questions. In a recent poll, a majority of people in 13 out of 15 nations agreed that euthanasia should be legal. Some 20 states in America are considering euthanasia measures. According to Gallup, 69 percent of Americans believe physicians should be able to legally “end patient’s life by some painless means.” This is nearly double the percentage who supported euthanasia in 1950.
Expect to see more countries go the way of Belgium. A culture that views truth as subjective opinion has no objective reason to value human life. But God does. He made each of us in our mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13-16) and engraved us on the palms of his hands (Isaiah 49:16).
And since we’re all dying, he invites us to say with Paul, “We do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.”
Laura is a 24-year-old in Belgium who plans to die by euthanasia this summer. She is not terminally ill. Rather, she explains that she has wanted to die ever since she was a child. “Life, that’s not for me,” she says. She has been approved for death by lethal injection. The chairman of Belgium’s federal euthanasia commission recently stated that 50 to 60 psychiatric patients like Laura are euthanized each year.
Belgium legalized euthanasia in 2002. Last year it became the first nation to legalize child euthanasia. According to The New England Journal of Medicine, Belgian doctors also “hasten the death” of patients “without an explicit request.” More than 1,000 patients a year are euthanized in this way. As Cambridge professor Jack Keown explains, “If a doctor thinks death would benefit the patient, why should the doctor deny the patient that benefit merely because the patient is incapable of asking for it?”
More countries are asking similar questions. In a recent poll, a majority of people in 13 out of 15 nations agreed that euthanasia should be legal. Some 20 states in America are considering euthanasia measures. According to Gallup, 69 percent of Americans believe physicians should be able to legally “end patient’s life by some painless means.” This is nearly double the percentage who supported euthanasia in 1950.
Expect to see more countries go the way of Belgium. A culture that views truth as subjective opinion has no objective reason to value human life. But God does. He made each of us in our mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13-16) and engraved us on the palms of his hands (Isaiah 49:16).
And since we’re all dying, he invites us to say with Paul, “We do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.”
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