The Baptist Pillar © Brandon Bible Baptist Church 1992-Present www.baptistpillar.com
"...The church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth."
I Timothy 3:15
Euthanasia
Dr. Hiers
Thou shalt not kill (Exodus 20:13)
Folks, in the day and age in which we live infanticide and euthanasia are being practiced at an ever increasing rate. The newborn baby who is born less than perfect, and the feeble elderly have become the targets of death. For the first time since Nazi Germany we are seeing a regression to death technology and to state-sanctioned, assassination medicine. History documents that legalized abortion and euthanasia prefaced the Holocaust.
Euthanasia, defined as "good death", is the pretext for finalizing the life of the golden aged or the incurably diseased or irreparably deformed. Such a view is in direct contradiction of the Judeo-Christian ethic. No life should be terminated on social or medical grounds unless that person has taken the life of another (Gen. 9:6).
The advocates of these so-called "mercy killings" feel that such a death is a blessing to the person involved and not a homicide. The problem is who plays the part of God in making such a decision, and when? The former Surgeon General of the United States, Dr. C. Everett Koop, comments that the humanistic justification for euthanasia has very little to do with medical limitations but a lot to do with some medical staff’s decision based on the social problems of the patient involved. These problems often have to do with visitation by the family, the number of nursing hours required each week, financial resources available, etc.
Essentially, there are two forms of euthanasia–voluntary and involuntary. The first plan leaves the final decision with the individual. A sympathetic physician conveniently leaves the drug needed with the directions as to its administration. The involuntary route is made by some doctor or family member without the sanction of the patient. Those who fall in this category are usually the deformed fetuses and terminally ill.
We must note at this point that euthanasia is not the prayerful and thoughtful planning for the death in which one makes the decision to prohibit extraordinary lifesaving devices. Euthanasia does not equal the "Living Will" you may file with your physician or family. Such an action authorizes your family or the doctors not to prolong your life by costly mechanical means. The Karen Quinlan case was a widely publicized example of how medical science can prolong visible signs of life even after the brain ceases to function. Since the Quinlan case, thirty-one states have now adopted the use of brain wave test to determine death. The point in question, however, is not the prolonged use of machine to sustain visible life, but should today’s society be allowed to do away with unwanted people? The same mentality that promotes the abortion disgrace advocates euthanasia.
Not long ago, many were shocked when the governor of Colorado, Richard Lamm, stated that the elderly terminally ill have a "duty to die." This type of mentality is humanistic, and Hitler would have liked it. Our ex-Surgeon General, Dr. Koop, reports that 80 percent of a group of pediatric surgeons who were asked, "Do you believe that the life of every newborn baby should be saved if it is within our ability to do so?" answered no.
A baby born with Down’s Syndrome and a malformed esophagus was allowed to die of starvation. This was not in some under-developed country, but in the state of Indiana. The parents decided to let the baby die rather than authorize a correction operation or even allow intravenous feeding because the child had Down’s Syndrome. I certainly agree with Dr. Koop when he stated, "withholding fluids or nourishment at any time is an immoral act."
As Christians we must recognize the difference in prolonging the act of dying and protecting the act of living. God places a high value on life, and so must we. A new science, sociobiology, is quickly spreading its influence in the medical world. It promotes abortion, euthanasia and the killing of malformed infant children. Sociobiology has been defined as the systematic study of biology as the basic force of all social behavior. The legitimate child of evolution is sociobiology. The advocates of sociobiology see Hitler’s ideas as "only forty years ahead of their time, although some of his methods may seem a bit crude."
One of the most extreme supporters of sociobiology is noted writer Edward O. Wilson of Harvard. Wilson outspokenly regards the human race as strictly materialistic. He has stated, "If human kind evolved by Darwinian natural selection, then genetic changes and environmental necessity, not God, make the species." Folks, when there is no God, there will be no morality, no ethics and no eternity.
As Bible-believing, independent, Fundamental Baptist, we must oppose the naturalistic philosophy of secular humanism and sociobiology. We must take strong exception to it and as Fundamentalists reject and disclaim euthanasia as anti-God, and anti-Biblical.
Euthanasia should be considered homicide. The whole idea totally rejects the possibility that God can and sometimes does raise up hopelessly ill people. Neither does euthanasia consider that God may have a purpose for suffering and illness. This humanistic mentality forces all decisions into the restricted mentality of modern science and its humanistic assumptions.
Christians, God’s Word still declares, "Thou shalt not kill."