We live in an impatient world. Fast food, quick checkouts, no-questions- asked returns, and no fault divorce are just a few examples of our attempt to create a hassle-free, pain-free life.
We’re constantly bombarded with the idea that we should always get what we want, when we want it.
While some such trends are helpful and harmless, others are both evil and dangerous.
Forty years ago this philosophy was diabolically applied to pre-born children by asking: Is having a child creating financial, social, physical or psychological difficulties? The insidious answer was: No problem; kill the child.
Now there’s escalating pressure to approach the end of life the same as the beginning. Facing a terminal illness? Have aches and pains? Just plain tired of living in this troubled world?
The answer for some is to take matters into their own hands and allow physicians to speed up the natural dying process. In other words, let’s legalize doctor prescribed suicide.
Spearheaded in the United States by a group called Compassion & Choices (C&C), the so-called “death-with-dignity” crowd feels the acceptance of doctor-assisted suicide has reached a critical mass of acceptance.
C&C, the successor to the defunct Hemlock Society, is funded by liberal billionaire George Soros.
The group has gained tremendous momentum since orchestrating a highly sophisticated campaign to promote the physician-assisted suicide of 29-year-old brain cancer patient Brittany Maynard last November.
C&C’s website features an article entitled: “Death-With-Dignity Boom: 25 states Now Considering Laws.”
At the writing of this article, GRTL is working to defeat proposed legislation that potentially could open the door to physician-assisted suicide in Georgia. Such a law would run counter to the ban against that practice passed in Georgia in 2012.
In the United States, doctor prescribed suicide is already legal in Oregon, Montana, Washington State, New Mexico, and Vermont.
Oregon, the first state to legalize the practice in 1977, has seen more than 750 people die through doctor prescribed suicide which is just the tip of the iceberg.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report shows Oregon saw a 49.3 percent increase in suicides among men and women aged 35-64, compared to 28 percent nationally even though this number does not include those who took their lives through doctor prescribed suicide, because the law specifically states that the practice is not to be considered suicide.
The number of prescriptions written has increased each year since the Act went into effect even though the three most frequently mentioned end-of-life concerns were: loss of autonomy (93.0%), decreasing ability to participate in activities that made life enjoyable (88.7%), and loss of dignity (73.2%) – not terminal illnesses.
In addition, the underlying illnesses making patients eligible for the lethal prescription include diabetes, benign or uncertain neoplasms [tumors], respiratory diseases, viral hepatitis and alcoholic liver disease.
So much for the requirement of being “diagnosed with a terminal illness that will lead to death within six months”.
But the expansion of this unbiblical trend is not unique to the United States.
Last month Canada’s Supreme Court overturned a ban on assisted suicide, which one commentator called the “…Roe v Wade of euthanasia and a very dark day in Canada’s history.”
The ruling said competent adults with “grievous and irremediable medical conditions” including illness, disease or disability that cause them “intolerable” suffering may consent to ending their lives.
Another commentator said Canada has “…entered into utter moral blindness if we honestly believe that killing someone in the name of ‘compassion’ or ‘mercy’ is the solution to the problem of pain or debilitation. All life is a gift, and no one has the moral right to take away that gift from someone else.”
While Canada’s law appears to be limited to patients with medical conditions, Holland has shown where the slippery slope can lead. In 2013, a total of 42 people with “severe psychiatric problems” were killed by lethal injection, compared to 14 in 2012 and 13 in 2011.
Overall, deaths by euthanasia, which account for three percent of all deaths in the greater Netherlands have increased by 151 percent in the last seven years.
Doctors in nearby Belgium, which last year legalized euthanasia for children, are now killing an average of five people a day.
I wake up every morning to face another day of pain from various ailments. But the thought of taking the falsely-named “easy way out” never enters my mind.
Like the Apostle Paul, I’m trusting in God’s grace to see me through any future difficulties (2 Corinthians 12:7-9).
Sources: washingtontimes.com; dailymail.co.uk; compassionandchoices.org.
By Wayne DuBois
Media Relations Advisor