In March, 2023, the law to seek medically assisted death will be expanded to include mental illness that causes serious suffering without the threat of an immanent death. This expansion of legal reasons to seek medically assisted death has been hotly debated in Canada.
On the one side of the debate is the position that this is a matter of personal autonomy. In this line of reasoning every adult person should have the right to decide if their suffering is intolerable and should be ended. The other side of the argument cautions that persons suffering severe mental illness may have a healing in the future and go on to led productive lives. This position also cautions the degree of personal freedom or lack of fgreedom that may be present in a person undergoing a mental health crisis.
Both sides build up the abuses that could develop following the change of the law next March.
All Christian people must take a sharp and critical eye toward the arguments put forward. We are being forced to go back to our roots (i.e., Divine Revelation) to discover what is the truth.
We focus first of all on the fifth commandment of the Ten Commandments: “You shall not kill.”
This very stark command is blunt. It is always wrong to kill another human being. There can be no place for murder or destruction of a person. The neighbor’s life is of inestimable value. Nothing must be done to ever harm another human being.
We have always understood that this commandment extends to our individual lives. You shall not kill yourself!
Suicide has always been very difficult for people to handle. For many centuries the interpretation existed in the Christian churches that anyone who killed themselves was guilty of a very serious sin. Fortunately, through the past seventy years, we have come to realize that suicide in a last desperate effort to try to eliminate the pain the person is suffering. As tragic as every suicide is, this is an effort to stop the pain, not primarily to destroy life.
Probably many of the medically assisted deaths due to severe mental illness will fall under the category of a suicide. But what of the many deaths that will be a deliberate choice to just end one’s own life. Period!
Is this not an instance of killing oneself?
The medical personnel are supposed to offer medically assisted death as a solution. Now, comes the deficiency in this practice. Does anyone from the medical community say, “Now, we also want to offer you reasons and help to work you thorough this time of suffering and pain?
Who is there to assist you to live with determination, purpose and meaning?
Where are all the big media outlets bringing us stories of individuals who have struggled through serious illness, but have managed to find new meaning and purpose in life? Who is telling the story of people who are thriving and have overcome their depression and despair?
The easy way out is not the answer. Give me purpose and direction to fight hard to live every day well and with determination. Give me reasons to want to live and breath this day.
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