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Suicide

Is it really "death with dignity"?

by Dennis Pollock

"All those who hate me love death." — Proverbs 8:36

It has even made its way into the cartoons. One pictures a doctor's waiting room where elderly patients are gathered with their crutches, canes and wheelchairs. To this pathetic group, the nurse steps cheerily to the door and announces, "The doctor will kill you now."

Another shows an aged, hag-like woman lying in bed in her own home. Above the bed there is a sign that says, "Home sweet home." Standing next to the bed is the woman's son, a middle-aged man. Standing next to him is his rather debauched wife with a cigarette in one hand and a newspaper in the other. The newspaper headline reads, "British Doctor Announces Death Pill for Aged." The son, with a rather demonic smile on his face, is dropping a pill into a glass of water. The caption quotes the mother saying, "I knew I should have aborted you like all the rest, son."

The Fascination with Death

As our nation has drifted from God, it has become obsessed with death, and the topic has become one of our hottest political issues. For several decades the debate has raged over whether women should be given the legal "right" to have their unborn babies conveniently put to death.

Today, a new controversy has risen. Joining forces with the pro-abortion zealots are the "right to die" societies and action committees led by such characters as Dr. Jack Kevorkian, inventor of the "suicide machine." Another spokesman for death is Derek Humphry, author of the do-it-yourself suicide manual called Final Exit, and founder of the Hemlock Society.

Across the United States, the battle is being fought. Victories for the suicide advocates have been infrequent thus far, but there are ominous signs on the horizon. In the state of Washington, for example, there was a recent public referendum that would have legalized doctor assisted euthanasia and suicide. It was defeated by only a 55 to 45 percent margin. More than a quarter of a million people had signed the petition to put it to a vote.

Infanticide has already become common place in this nation as thousands of babies every year are simply left to die, with the initials NPO placed over their crib. These initials, which would mean nothing to the uniformed, actually come from the Latin language, and stand for "nothing by mouth." In other words these babies are not to be fed; they are to be allowed to die of starvation.

The foremost character in the effort to legalize doctor assisted suicide is, of course, Dr. Jack Kevorkian. His recent acquittal in a Michigan court was the first jury test of that state's assisted suicide ban. In the wake of that acquittal, the prosecuting attorney said he does not intend to prosecute any more violations of the law, at least until the State Court of Appeals or the Michigan Legislature provide further guidance. Kevorkian exulted, "I'm prosecutable; I'm just not convictable." His attorney agreed: "People will not convict kindness and compassion, ever."

Kevorkian's motives may run beyond the desire to see suffering people helped, however. It seems he has had a perverse fixation with death from his early days.

While a student at the University of Michigan, as a resident in pathology, he would stare into the eyes of dying patients to pinpoint the exact moment of death. It earned him the nickname of "Dr. Death" even then. In another early experiment Kevorkian would draw blood from a fresh corpse and inject it into a friend. He built his first suicide machine before he even had a patient to use it on.

In the 1960's Kevorkian produced a series of macabre paintings. One showed a man trapped in an inferno with his very bones on fire. Another portrayed a death figure who appears to be clawing the brain from a man's skull, with distorted faces in the background laughing. He is reported to have also done other paintings picturing dismemberment and cannibalism, but his lawyers refuse to make them available.

The First Question

Any discussion of the legitimacy of suicide must first address two fundamental questions: 1) Is there a God? and 2) Does He have any thoughts about the matter? I would be the first to agree that if there were no God, suicide would be a most sensible act in many cases. If man is but a cosmic accident, a chance combination of atoms and elements, and if there be no such thing as absolute right or wrong, or good or evil, why not end it all when life becomes so painful that all the pleasure is gone?

Such life would be but a tragic joke anyway. It would be without any purpose, and its end would be as Bertrand Russell described: "Over man and all his works, night falls, pitiless and dark." With such an attitude, if you prefer to die today rather than tomorrow to save yourself from suffering, so be it. The truth is, if God does not exist, and heaven is but a myth, suicide would be, in many cases, the most rational option many people have available to them. Go ahead and end your suffering now, if the darkness of non-existence awaits us all.

Derek Humphry, in his book Final Exit seems to understand this very well. Early in the first chapter he encourages those who wish to deliberately leave this world to read on carefully, but adds, "If you consider God the master of your fate, then read no further. Seek the best pain management available and arrange hospice care." It appears that this do-it-yourself manual on taking your own life is only for those who have rejected the concept of a sovereign God who is in control of nations and individual destinies. Need any more be said?

You see, those who deny God, yet try to make life purposeful, and who speak woefully of the folly of suicide, are inconsistent with their own philosophy. The apostle Paul declares, "If the dead do not rise, 'Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die'" (1 Corinthians 15:32).

U.S. News & World Report told of a family-assisted suicide that occurred recently. A seventy year woman, dying of cancer, decided it would be better to hasten the end and spare herself several final months of misery. Having saved up the morphine her doctor had given her for pain, she gathered her children around her one evening. By the sofa they nibbled on sandwiches and sipped wine. For 2 hours, they listened to old records that her brother had brought, reminiscing, even singing a few words to the songs. Then she turned to her youngest son and asked, "Are we going to have any more callers today?" "No, Mom," he answered. "Then, let's get on with it," she said. "I want to go."

Her daughter dressed her in the peach-colored silky pajamas she'd chosen to die in, kissed her, told her good night and went home. Her brothers remained, watching her swallow all the morphine she had and fall immediately asleep. Two hours later, she stopped breathing.

Weeks before she died, the woman had been asked if she was afraid of death. "I don't think so," she said. "It's just an end. Nothingness. I don't believe in sin or heaven or hell, except right here." To choose to die by her own hand was perfectly consistent with her belief in a meaningless universe.

The God Factor

The only problem with all of this is that God does exist! The heavens declare His glory and the earth shows His handiwork. And because He is our Creator, He has some opinions about matters of life and death. Some of the things He says make it plain that we have no right to destroy our lives.

"Behold, all souls are Mine" (Ezekiel 18:4). "You are not your own; you were bought with a price" (1 Corinthians 6:19,20). God declares that we belong to Him. It is considered vandalism to destroy another's property. Those who suggest that we should be able to do what we want with our own bodies ignore the fact that we are not our own.

"And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them" (Psalm 139: 16). God's word tells us that He has fashioned a plan for our lives, and has determined the number of our days. Who are we to cut short that number because life isn't as pleasurable as it once was?

"Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints" (Psalm 116:15). God looks upon the home-going of His children as a precious and sacred time. It is their "graduation day." Shall we become as drop-outs and try to pull out of this life before that appointed time?

"For with God nothing is impossible" (Luke 1:37). Many who argue for legalized suicide, use terminal illness as their main defense. Yet only God can tell which illnesses are terminal. Both the Bible and recent history are loaded with examples of men and women who were judged terminally ill by the experts of their day, only to survive and live many more years. When people put an end to their lives, they close the door on God's miraculous ability to intervene in their situations.

The God of Hope

While many factors may contribute to a person's decision to end his or her life, behind all suicide is one primary condition: hopelessness. When rock star Kurt Cobain went up to the room above his garage and fired a shotgun at his head, his suicide note revealed a tormented soul that had concluded that life simply was not going to get any better. "I don't have the passion anymore," he wrote. "It's not fun for me anymore. I can't live this life." So fearsome was the blast that he fired to his head, authorities had to use fingerprints to identify the body. Hopelessness had claimed another victim.

The Scriptures reveal God to be the God of hope. One of my favorite verses says, "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit" (Romans 15:13). To the Colossians Paul declares that the faith they had in the Lord Jesus and their love for all the saints spring from "the hope laid up for you in heaven" (Colossians 1:5). And to Titus he declares that the grace of God causes us to be "looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ." Peter writes that God has "begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" (1 Peter 1:3).

Yes, friends, God is a God of hope. The Bible is filled with hope, from beginning to end; not the wishful hope of a child "hoping" for a new bike for Christmas or a desperate man "hoping" to win the state lottery, but the sure and certain expectation of good things to come from the hands of God. This is a vital part of knowing Christ, and it was made possible for us through His death on the Cross. There He took our sins upon Himself. He bore the penalty of our sins and took our hopelessness in order that we might have hope. His resurrection guaranteed us that hope. Some of that hope will be realized in this life, but much of it will be found in the next. Knowing these things, we take our stand for life, courageously facing the difficulties and pains that will surely come, knowing that God will not allow us to be tempted beyond what we are able, but will, with the temptation, provide us sufficient grace for the trial (1 Corinthians 10:13).

The humanists and pro-death groups suggest that to die with cancer in a sterile hospital is undignified. Far better, they say, to die at your own hand among friends. What they fail to realize is that all death is dignified if it is the conclusion of a life lived for Christ. Whether beheaded like Paul, or crucified upside down, as was said of Peter, or of cancer, or a car wreck, or being burned at the stake as many of the martyrs died, the death of God's saints is always a sacred and holy (and dignified) moment in the eyes of God. As one far wiser than I once wrote, "For me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain" (Philippians 1:21).