In 1984, eleven years after the Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade legalized abortion, President Ronald Reagan designated the third Sunday of January as National Sanctity of Human Life Day. Although Roe v. Wade is now overturned, we still must strive diligently to create a culture that values life. This coming Sunday, we hope that you and your church will give special attention to commemorating the sanctity of human life.
When discussing the sanctity of human life, we often focus our attention on the evils of abortion. And while abortion certainly deserves our attention, unfortunately, it is not the only common practice that devalues life. Valuing the sanctity of human life means speaking up for any vulnerable person: not only the unborn but also the disabled, marginalized, and elderly. Every human being deserves respect, love, and dignity from the moment of fertilization until natural death. And no person should have their life taken from them or have the right to take their own life.
Physician-Assisted Suicide: A Growing Phenomenon
Tragically, physician-assisted suicide is becoming a more and more culturally acceptable solution to present suffering. Popular films and novels portray assisted suicide as the dignified and compassionate choice to end unwanted life here on earth. And terminology such as “death with dignity,” “medical aid in dying,” and “physician-assisted death” soften the reality of suicide.
Today, Canda is known as a leader in legalizing physician-assisted suicide. In 2024, physician-assisted suicide caused 5% of deaths in Canada. Canada’s journey to legalize physician-assisted suicide began ten years ago with a bill that legalized physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients. Then, in 2021 a new bill removed the restriction that natural death be “reasonably foreseeable” meaning that patients with years of life left could choose to pull the plug on their earthly existence. And more restrictions will be lifted soon. Currently, the law temporarily restricts physician-assisted suicide for those suffering solely from mental health concerns, but this exclusion is scheduled to be lifted next year.
Bringing the matter closer to home, just last month our next-door neighbor Illinois became the twelfth state to legalize physician-assisted suicide. The recently passed Medical Aid and Dying Bill, allows terminally ill adults who have been given less than six months to live the ability to choose to end their own lives through physician-assisted suicide.
A Christian Perspective on Physician-Assisted Suicide
While proponents of physician-assisted suicide claim that it gives dignity to the ill by compassionately providing them with the opportunity to choose how they will die,
as Christians, we recognize that only God has the power to choose our moment of death. Ecclesiastes 8:8 says, “No man has power to retain the spirit, or power over the day of death.” And Psalm 139 tells us that God determined our number of days before our birth: “Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.” God’s Word shows us that He is the determiner of our lifespan and that every day is a gift from Him.
In addition, we recognize that God is sovereign over all. God never intended for us to choose our moment of death, rather He calls us to live every day of life for Him until the day that He has appointed for our death arrives. Certainly, we should treat every human being – especially the vulnerable – with utmost dignity and respect. But the respect we should extend to the ill and dying does not include giving them the ability to end their own lives.
The attempt to choose our moment of death is an attempt to control what God never intended for us to control. In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve committed the first sin in an attempt to be like God. Ever since that moment, humanity has attempted to usurp God’s authority. While on the outside physician-assisted suicide may seem like compassion to the ill, a closer look reveals that it is just another version of the original sin, an attempt to be sovereign in an area that God alone controls.
A Question of Value
Ewan C. Goligher, a Christian physician and scientist, boils down the physician-assisted suicide debate to one central question: What gives a human value? Proponents of physician-assisted suicide put forth the culturally prominent idea that value comes from within. According to their viewpoint, when a person believes that their value has expired, they should be free to end their own life. While no doubt many of them genuinely care about those who suffer, their definition of value misses the mark.
As Christians, we must reject the view that each human is the source of his or her own value. Rather, we recognize God as the Giver of value. He created each human with immeasurable worth. Even when we don’t feel valuable or doubt the value of other human beings, our feelings don’t change reality. Regardless of how we feel about ourselves and others, each human being holds immeasurable intrinsic value simply by being human. Human value comes from outside of ourselves and rests in an unchanging source: God. He is the Giver of value, and our feelings, circumstances, or suffering can never take it away.
A Transformed View of Suffering
As humans, we are naturally bent to avoid suffering. Especially in our modern age of convenience, it’s little wonder that our society would also attempt to avoid the suffering of death.
But God views suffering differently than we do. Theologian John Piper explains, “Suffering is not viewed in the Bible as the worst thing. The Bible describes how God often uses it for good and wise and loving purposes and, therefore, suffering never becomes such an evil so great that it justifies disobedience to one of the commands of God like the command not to take innocent life.”
Romans 8:28 encourages us, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good.” And James 1 tells us that God can use trials in our lives to produce endurance. Whether we can see it or not, God has a reason for our suffering. Ending life in the face of suffering robs God of the opportunity to turn evil into good and to accomplish His purposes through our suffering. When we recognize the truth that God is sovereign over all and is working His purposes in our lives, we can accept and perhaps even come to embrace the suffering He chooses to allow in our lives.
Goligher powerfully explains:
Physician-assisted death is held up as a solution to the problem of suffering; at bottom, it’s a solution to despair. And the solution is to end the person who’s in despair.
We know a better way.
The gospel offers us deep, durable meaning—powerful enough to sustain us through life and through suffering and dying. Our story becomes part of God’s grand story, the story behind all stories. It’s the story in which our suffering is shown to be for good, to be meaningful, to matter, to be worth it.
Life is valuable because God says so, and suffering is bearable because He is sovereign over all. The greatest compassion we can extend to the suffering is not to end their physical pain but to offer them spiritual healing through a restored relationship with God.
Sanctity of Human Life Sunday
As we pause this Sunday to commemorate the sanctity of all human life, we recognize that human value comes from God alone. The unborn, the ill, and the elderly bear incalculable value regardless of human perspectives. God holds the keys to life and death. We ought to leave them in His hands. Even when we might feel that death is the best solution to earthly suffering, we must trust in the Lord’s wisdom. The Giver of Life is the only one who holds the power to take it away.
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