The Rise of Euthanasia
by Daniel James Devine
Two centuries ago, guillotine-severed heads were experimented on. The tests were conducted in order to discover if any consciousness remained in the heads during the long minutes after decapitation[1] What was found might shock you. As recently as 1906, reactions of one—such as opening its eyes when its name was called[2]—convinced some that consciousness did indeed exist after a criminal had doffed his head. Many of these people now saw decapitation as an inhuman form of execution, and denounced the guillotine. Even more recently the same form of criticism has targeted other execution methods, like hanging, the firing squad, and the electric chair. Such methods have been eliminated in many places because of a common belief: Death should be a painless, if not pleasant experience.
Today, this belief is expanding rapidly. Euthanasia means “good death.”[3]There are people who would rather self-induce an assumedly painless premature death than wait out their days with a terminal illness. Some would rather die than live with physical or even mental discomfort. Some are willing to kill their own patients, with or without consent. Studies from the Netherlands show that people are being shrewdly killed by their doctors, who are almost never prosecuted. Critics are afraid that these more clandestine practices could crop up in America, especially since Oregon passed laws protecting physician-assisted suicide. Why are these practices spreading? Who should decide when a person’s life should end? What can be done about this global problem?
To answer these questions, I will explore the issues and the thinking behind modern euthanasia practices. First, we’ll glance at the current euthanasia movement in order to know its leaders and its extent. Second, we’ll look at several different worldviews—namely, Secular Humanism, Marxism, Cosmic Humanism, and Biblical Christianity—and see how each set of beliefs creates the adherent’s convictions about euthanasia. Third, we’ll explore the Christian Scriptures, discovering what God requires in this topic; and fourth and finally we’ll come to some practical and immediately applicable conclusions.
In 1975 Derek Humphry helped his wife commit suicide. She had cancer and was in great pain. Many people find pain to be a strongly compelling motive for suicide. Humphry and his second wife Anne Wickett later founded a organization called the Hemlock Society, named after the poison Socrates drank when the state ordered him to commit suicide. Several years before Socrates died (399 B.C.), Sophocles claimed “Death is not the worst evil, but rather when we wish to die and cannot"[4]—although, obviously, he had not yet experienced death. Aristotle said, “to kill oneself to escape from love or poverty or anything else that is distressing is not courageous.”[5] We see suicide was an issue even in ancient times. When Christianity spread during the second century, suicide was condemned, as Humphry and Wickett wrote in their book, The Right to Die:
Anyone who took his own life was denied Christian burial. Civil legislation was influenced as well. Not only were the victim’s goods and property confiscated by civil authorities; the body received an ignominious burial on the highway, impaled by a stake. There were no exceptions—not even for those who had endured prolonged suffering due to an incurable illness.[6]
Today, attempts are being made not only to legalize suicide, but also to legalize assisting those who might commit suicide if they were physically and emotionally able and could do it painlessly. Figures like Humphry, Timothy Quill, and Jack Kevorkian have cleared a trail for other euthanasia activists to traverse and broaden. Dr. Timothy Quill provided a lethal prescription for one of his female patients who wished to die rather than be controlled by her illness. Quill felt that he was “setting [Diane] free”[7] by helping her commit suicide to escape her terminal infection with leukemia. Jack Kevorkian explains in his book Prescription: Medicide his belief that “doctor-assisted euthanasia and suicide are and always were ethical, no matter what anyone says or thinks.”[8] Lisa Yount in Euthanasia documents Kevorkian’s method of carrying out his own belief:
As [Jack Kevorkian] began explaining on television talk shows in 1989, he had built a machine that, when a patient triggered it, injected a substance to make the person unconscious and then, a few minutes later, a second drug to stop the heart. He called his device a Mercitron. [9]
In 1998 Kevorkian personally administered a lethal dose to one of his patients (without the use of a machine), aired a videotape of the event on 60 Minutes, and was promptly sent to prison.
There is variety within the term euthanasia. Active euthanasia describes applying lethal measures (normally prescription drugs) to a patient with or without his consent. Passive euthanasia describes the removal of select life supports, such as artificial respiration, medicine, or food and water, and thereby allowing the patient to die. Somewhere in between these extremes is the common practice of terminal sedation, which Yount also describes in Euthanasia:
In terminal sedation, a physician gives a terminally ill, suffering patient a high dose of narcotics for the purpose of the relieving the person’s pain, knowing that the drugs may also have a second effect of shortening or even ending the person’s life.[10]
Suicide is often grouped alongside euthanasia because many euthanized people desired to die. Physician-assisted suicide occurs when a physician prescribes or prepares a lethal dose, while the patient makes the final choice to accept the drugs, sometimes by pressing a button. Critics are afraid that by allowing passive euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, the door will be opened for more drastic, holocaustic crimes. Perhaps their fear is fueled by stories and reports from the Netherlands, where hard-core active euthanasia is not technically legal, but is openly practiced without much opposition. In an attempt to convince that euthanasia should be condemned and kept illegal, Herbert Hendin writes,
The experience of the Dutch people make it clear that legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia is not the answer to the problems of people who are terminally ill. The Netherlands has moved from assisted suicide to euthanasia, from euthanasia for people who are terminally ill to euthanasia for those who are chronically ill, from euthanasia for physical illness to euthanasia for psychological distress, and from voluntary euthanasia to involuntary euthanasia (called ‘termination of the patient without explicit request’). The Dutch government’s own commissioned research has documented that in more than a thousand cases a year, doctors actively cause or hasten death without the patient’s request.[11]
Yount pulls back the curtain on the Netherlands scene as well:
One doctor, for instance, euthanized a woman with advanced cancer against her will because ‘it could have taken another week before she died. I . . . needed this [hospital] bed.’ [12]
The people are aware of what their doctors are doing to them. “Some Dutch citizens carry ‘life passports,’” continues Yount, “stating that they do not want euthanasia if they are admitted to a hospital while incompetent."[13]
A 1995 study of the Netherlands by Gerrit van der Wal and Paul J. van der Maas reported 3,200 occasions of active euthanasia with the patient’s request, and 900 cases of active euthanasia without the patient’s explicit reques.[14] If assisted suicide and euthanasia become widely legalized, these numbers and more could turn up in the United States.
Understanding a person’s worldview can help us understand why they would support doctor-assisted suicide and euthanasia. Secular Humanism, a prevalent worldview in Western culture (and probably Christianity’s most formidable competitor), says that there is no God. It offers evolution as the answer to the question of man’s origins, and concludes that whatever appears to be right is right—there are no absolutes. Kevorkian writes of American legislators’ shyness of legalizing assisted suicide and death:
[Legislators] should know that the ultimate wellspring of morality is the mores of a people. As new conditions of life arise from the burgeoning conquests of parts of nature by science, technology, and even art, the mores adapt almost automatically.[15]
If right or wrong is only determined by society’s mores, than an evolving society must change the rules of ethics from time to time. Such free play allows the cutting of practically every moral restraint held in place by society, including murder.
The philosophy of Humanism is naturalism—the denial of the supernatural and acceptance of only the natural (whatever can be discovered or tested through the five senses). Naturalism is evident in Jack Kevorkian’s writings. “It may be (and most likely is) true that the essence of birth, life, and death ultimately is far beyond the reach of science,”[16] he says. “If we are ever to penetrate the mystery of death—even superficially—it will have to be through obitiatry.”[17] Obitiatry is Kevorkian’s word for the field of experimentation and study of human life and death on anesthetized, dying individuals. Kevorkian admits his own ignorance of mankind’s purpose:
From a scientific standpoint death is an absolutely unfathomable mystery. But so, too, are birth and life (or existence itself). Nobody has even a hint of true knowledge about where we came from, where we now are, and where we will be when we die.
Without a Higher Lawgiver, the Humanist’s law in life is to serve himself and seek his own fulfillment. Secular Humanism holds a vague code of ethics. Euthanasia may be right for some people but perhaps not all. “Of course, humanism has no single ethical theory, therefore ethical theory and moral subject must be chosen, examined, and even debated."[18]
The morality or immorality of any behavior, including sexual behavior, has been put in the context of ‘situation ethics.’ In this approach moral behavior may differ from situation to situation. Behavior might be moral for one person and not another or moral at one time and not another.[19]
What is unclear is the conclusion two Humanists would come to over non-consensual euthanasia if one was the doctor and one was the patient.
Another influential worldview in America is Marxism. Interestingly, Karl Marx’s daughter and son-in-law committed suicide.[20] Adherents to this worldview are, like Humanism’s pupils, atheists and evolutionists. Marxists strongly emphasize a powerful central government, and believe that society evolves along with nature in short, radical spurts. “According to the Marxist, the acceptable form of conduct in class morality is whatever it takes to accomplish the ultimate goal – namely, a classless communist society,"[21]says David Noebel, outlining and arguing against the Marxist view of ethics in The Battle for Truth. If euthanasia were helpful in furthering the good of society by ending the lives of certain races or classes, then it should be used to its fullest. In this case, a Marxist would want euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide legalized at once, despite the feelings of the general public. Legalization would slowly influence the public’s code of ethics, as Leon R. Kass and Nelson Lund warn us:
'Gorks,’ ‘gomers,’ and ‘vegetables’ are only some of the less-than-affectionate names [hard-to-cure] patients receive from interns and residents. Once the venerable taboo against assisted suicide and medical killing is broken, many physicians will be much less able to care wholeheartedly for these patients.[22]
The Marxist believes that once active euthanasia with consent were legalized, time alone would cause critics to get used to the idea, and then such things as euthanasia without consent could be legalized. G. K. Chesterton recognized this several decades ago as he argued against a bill that was being presented to British Parliament:
Some are proposing what is called euthanasia; at present only a proposal for killing those who are a nuisance to themselves; but soon to be applied to those who are a nuisance to other people.[23]
Cosmic Humanism is a worldview also known as New Age. New Agers believe in pantheism , “the belief that everything is God and God is everything . . ."[24] This leads them to conclude that all things are supernatural. Furthermore, since we are all god, or gods, we cannot condemn the acts of another person, since their choices are equally divine with ours. “It [is] not possible to judge another’s truth,"[25] said New Ager Shirley MacLaine. If, then, a person wanted to commit suicide, help another commit suicide, or even kill another without consent, we would have no right to pass judgment on him or restrict his godhood. David Noebel says of Cosmic Humanism, “What the world considers evil—war, murder, etc.—is part of the evolutionary flow and struggle of reality as supraconsciousness strives to be born on a higher level."[26] With such an outlook on truth and ethics, a New Ager who firmly holds to his creeds cannot declare any form of suicide or euthanasia to be wrong.
The last influential worldview I’ll describe is Biblical Christianity. This worldview is set apart from the previous three because of its stance on theism. Christians, who believe that God made the universe and mankind along with it, attach sacredness to human life. The Bible tells us that man was created in the “image”[27] of God, setting man apart from matter and animals. Christians believe in the existence of the soul, meaning there is a consciousness after death similar to the consciousness we have while alive. In Body and Soul, J. P. Moreland and Scott B. Rae begin by acknowledging Christianity’s timeless adherence to the soul’s existence:
For two thousand years, the vast majority of Christian thinkers have believed in the souls of men and beasts, as it used to be put. . . More specifically, a human being is a unity of two distinct entities—body and soul.[28]
Biblical Christianity also holds that there is such a thing as absolute morality, instituted by God. Norman Geisler defines absolutes in his Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics: “An absolute duty is one that is binding on all persons at all times in all places."[29] Geisler goes on to describe the differences a moral may have in its application: “A legitimate discussion to decide which value applies to a given situation is not the same as a discussion over whether there is an absolute value."[30] For example; in this worldview, it is immoral to willfully kill oneself or another because God is the giver and taker of life. Christians quote the sixth of the Ten Commandments, “You shall not murder."[31] There are, however, exceptions to this command in particular circumstances. The occurrence of death in “capital punishment, legitimate warfare, self-defense, and similar acts are not forbidden,"[32] wrote Rousas John Rushdoony in his book, The Institutes of Biblical Law. So while the law against murder is an “absolute value,” it applies to specific circumstances of killing, some of which may even be gray matter requiring balanced judgment, like whether a group of bombed enemy civilians had been posing any real threat.
A person may also be convicted of murder by willful negligence, whether to himself or others. Suicide would also be a form of murder. Rushdoony goes on to cite Adam Clark, who laid down ten Biblical patterns of a murderer . Here are numbers six and eight:
6. All who by immoderate and superstitious fastings, macerations of the body, and willful neglect of health, destroy or abridge life, are murderers;—whatever a false religion and ignorant superstitious priests may say of them. God will not have murder for sacrifice.
8. All who put an end to their own lives by hemp, steel, pistol, poison, drowning, &c. are murderers--whatever coroners' inquests may say of them; unless it be clearly proved that the deceased was radically insane.[33]
The Catholic catechism deals with suicide in its section on human dignity:
2280 Everyone is responsible for his life before God who has given it to him. It is God who remains the sovereign Master of life. We are obliged to accept life gratefully and preserve it for his honor and the salvation of our souls. We are stewards, not owners, of the life God has entrusted to us. It is not ours to dispose of.
The catechism also speaks directly to euthanasia.
2276 Those whose lives are diminished or weakened deserve special respect. Sick or handicapped persons should be helped to lead lives as normal as possible.
2277 Whatever its motives and means, direct euthanasia consists in putting an end to the lives of handicapped, sick, or dying persons. It is morally unacceptable.
Thus an act or omission which, of itself or by intention, causes death in order to eliminate suffering constitutes a murder gravely contrary to the dignity of the human person and to the respect due to the living God, his Creator. The error of judgment into which one can fall in good faith does not change the nature of this murderous act, which must always be forbidden and excluded.[34]
The four worldviews I have described are at points in total opposition to one another. What should a Christian’s response be to a person whose foundational beliefs, whose views of theology and biology, are so different? What should a Christian say to defend and promote his beliefs concerning euthanasia?
Christians must start with the Bible. Let me relate a few passages that shine light on this topic. Euthanasia hinges on the concept that death should be painless—a desire the Bible does not condemn. In Proverbs we find advice to “Give beer to those who are perishing, wine to those who are in anguish; let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no more.”[35] This, along with other references to medicine, implies that we have a duty to prevent needless suffering when able. However, the Bible does not condone the killing of oneself to prevent suffering—physical or mental. Elijah [36] and Jonah [37] both asked God to let them die when they became unhappy with their circumstances, but God refused. On the other hand, blinded and imprisoned Samson asked God to “Let me die with the Philistines!”[38] and this time it would seem God said yes. God renewed his strength, allowing him to push over temple supports, collapsing the building on himself and thousands of Israel’s enemies. However, this instance should be seen as a sacrifice for a higher cause, since it occurred in a time of war and since Samson was by vocation Israel’s leader in rebellion against the Philistines, who were occupying their land.[39] Job, after losing his children and wealth and developing painful sores “from the soles of his feet to the top of his head,"[40] wished he had never been born. “I loathe my very life,"[41] he said. His wife encouraged him to end it: “Are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and die!"[42] But Job never did . “You are talking like a foolish woman,” he told her. “Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?"[43] This is not the story of a man with remarkable endurance; it is the story of a man with the fear of God in him. Job recognized God’s authority to give and take life.
In the parable of the Good Samaritan [44], Jesus told the story of a man who had been robbed, stripped, beaten, and left for dead by the side of the road. In a radical case of passive euthanasia, and for no apparent reason, two men passed by without stopping. The third man, however, stopped and helped the injured fellow, took him to safety, and paid medical bills. Jesus called him a true neighbor, a keeper of the Law.
But by far the most convincing account of God’s condemnation of assisted suicide is the story of Saul’s death. 1 Samuel 31 tells how Saul had been mortally wounded in battle. Afraid of torture by his enemies, he asked his armor-bearer to run him through.
But his armor-bearer was terrified and would not do it; so Saul took his own sword and fell on it. When the armor-bearer saw that Saul was dead, he too fell on his sword and died with him.[45]
The armor-bearer also killed himself, probably just as fearful of torture as Saul was, as well as seeing that the odds were greatly against his escape, or survival if he did, since armor-bearers were responsible for the lives of their masters. But the twist in this account comes afterwards. A deceitful Amalekite, hopeful for reward, appears before King David bringing news of Saul’s death, and claiming that the wounded King Saul had asked for his assistance in the heat of battle:
[Saul] said to me, ‘Stand over me and kill me! I am in the throes of death, but I’m still alive.’ So I stood over him and killed him, because I knew that after he had fallen he could not survive.[46]
Instead of rejoicing over the death of one who had for so long persecuted him, David flew into a rage against the Amalekite.
“David asked him, ‘Why were you not afraid to lift your hand to destroy the LORD’s anointed?’
“Then David called one of his men and said, ‘Go, strike him down!’ So he struck [the Amalekite] down, and he died. For David had said to him, ‘Your blood be on your own head. Your own mouth testified against you when you said, “I killed the LORD’s anointed.”’”
David considered the man a murderer. Remember that the Amalekite presented himself as a ‘neighbor,’ not as an enemy or even a soldier, so his reasons for killing Saul were not justified by warfare. It is unlikely that David had much respect for Saul personally; ultimately it was God’s authority that David was upholding. We as Christians do not respect life in and of itself, we respect it because God values it and commands us to value it as well.
Because of these examples, I am—along with historical Christianity in general—of the conviction that suicide is immoral, although I find little basis for judicial punishment against those who attempt it. There are more difficult situations of course, such as the tragedy of September 11, when people chose to jump from the burning World Trade Center rather than face the flames. It provokes a thoughtful question, though: Did they have a moral freedom to choose their way of death? What if they killed people below?
Assisted suicide, whether assisted by a physician or a friend, is wrong; it should, I believe, be punished as murder in proportion to the degree of involvement. A person who stands around watching while another commits suicide carries moral blame if he does nothing. Paul the Apostle shouted at his jailer who was about to kill himself.[47]
Active euthanasia was the crime of the Amalekite, who wanted to put Saul out of his misery. It is nothing other than murder and should be viewed as such. To say “they will die eventually” is a bad argument because we will all die eventually; an assumed impending death gives no one the right to speed things up. A disadvantaged life is not a valid reason to terminate one. God creates a disadvantaged life as well as a normal life, as He told Moses in the account of the burning bush. “Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the LORD?"[48]
Passive euthanasia is harder to critique. People define passive euthanasia with many different sized spectrums. The most radical forms are easy to identify, and easy to condemn. The parable of the Good Samaritan illustrates this principle well, and shows the evil of apathy when we have the power to help. Proverbs and James back this up: “Do not withhold good from those who deserve it, when it is in your power to act.”[49] “ Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins."[50] When the situation of an injured or ill person becomes evident, it should be carefully investigated to see if help could be offered. (There are exceptions—it would be ridiculous for a soldier in a heated gunfight to pause his mission and help every wounded fellow soldier he saw.)
But what about the times when extensive artificial life support simply delays imminent death? What about when a family sorrowfully decides to “pull the plug” on a brain-dead relative? Or when someone refuses prolonged medical treatment? Should we force it on them? We have to admit there is “gray matter” in life—circumstances with no clear-cut answers that require prayer and wise judgment. The Catholic Catechism offers more direction here and also addresses terminal sedation:
2278 Discontinuing medical procedures that are burdensome, dangerous, extraordinary, or disproportionate to the expected outcome can be legitimate; it is the refusal of "over-zealous" treatment. Here one does not will to cause death; one's inability to impede it is merely accepted. The decisions should be made by the patient if he is competent and able or, if not, by those legally entitled to act for the patient, whose reasonable will and legitimate interests must always be respected.
2279 Even if death is thought imminent, the ordinary care owed to a sick person cannot be legitimately interrupted. The use of painkillers to alleviate the sufferings of the dying, even at the risk of shortening their days, can be morally in conformity with human dignity if death is not willed as either an end or a means, but only foreseen and tolerated as inevitable Palliative care is a special form of disinterested charity. As such it should be encouraged.[51]
The catechism refers to the motives involved in withholding excessive treatment to an individual. Normal care should be given, but when a person’s death is irreversibly imminent it seems vulgar to apply extraordinary measures of medicine.
Yet keep in mind that no one knows for sure when an individual will finally die. Cancer patients often live months or years longer than their prognoses predict, and comatose patients sometimes recover after years of semi- or unconscious torpor. Terry Wallis, a paralyzed man in a silent, comatose state since a 1984 accident, suddenly began speaking in 2003, to the astonishment of doctors. And in 2005 Sarah Scantlin awoke after 20 years in a coma that only allowed her to blink her eyes in answer to questions no one knew for sure if she understood. In February she began carrying on normal conversations again, although she still suffers from uncontrollable spasms, is unable to eat on her own, and is under the strong impression that we are still in the 1980s. (See also the January 19th, 2006 story of Haleigh Poutre, a severely beaten and comatose 11-year-old girl in the custody of the state of Massachusetts, who began to recover a day after the state Supreme Judicial Court ruled her feeding tube could be removed. The court based its decision on the opinion of several doctors who said Haleigh was in a permanent vegetative state.) People need to understand, therefore, that a coma or a mental disorder is not synonymous with death. Nor is the use of a feeding tube evidence of imminent death. Our moral duty is to use medical options to extend life, not shorten it.
I would say that in general no help or medication should be forced on a responsible adult who consciously refuses it. For example, if Grandpa will not get his heart condition checked, it is probably not right to have police to escort him to the hospital, but perhaps he should be presented a convincing case for the danger he is in and even “pressured” a little. Of course, if a child refused medicine, or a hysterical person tried escaping the arms of his restrainers in order to jump off a bridge, I would force temporary “help.” Moreland and Rae in Body & Soul argue that while organs such as the heart and lungs can be kept artificially functioning in a brain-dead person, a completely brain-dead person will not operate any organs if removed from artificial support; thus, he is no longer alive [52] They conclude their book with what I perceive to be good sense:
Some argue that euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide at the end of life do not violate the sanctity of life because those at the end of life, particularly those in a persistent vegetative state, are no longer persons. In such a view these patients may be biologically alive, but the person has passed away. We reject such a dichotomy between a human being and a human person and hold that a substance view requires that a patient is a person until he or she has died; at that point, the soul goes to be with God (or to be separated from him), and the body awaits future resurrection. Patients at the end of life, because they are persons, are deserving of the best care medicine has to offer, which may or may not include aggressive treatment depending on the patients’ prognosis.[53]
In summery, I conclude: First; a person has no right to deliberately end his own life, since life is God’s to create or destroy, and since Biblical evidence does not permit suicide, except in legitimate cases of self-sacrifice. Second; a person has no right to deliberately end the life of another, whether by activity or inactivity, because life is God’s to create or destroy, and since Biblical evidence does not permit killing, except in legitimate circumstances of war, judicial execution, defense, and other similar situations.
I appeal all to take a stand on God’s moral absolutes concerning the issues surrounding euthanasia. Work to persuade others of the existence of absolutes, and show how absolutes are relevant to the decisions we make about death. If wicked philosophies convince Americans to legalize euthanasia, it may be years before it can be overturned again, if ever. Don’t be taken in by emotional stories of suicides or murderers supposedly “at peace” with their decision. Sympathize, but obey God rather than man. Read scripture, like the book of Job, for accounts of miserable people who trusted in Him despite their conditions. Seek guidance from mature students of God’s Word who can help clarify foggy situations. Above all, believe God, Who is more worthy to be heard than all of mankind’s authorities.
This article was modified from an unpublished essay on euthanasia written by the author.
copyright 2005 Daniel James Devine. all rights reserved.
Post comments.
Bibliography
Catechism of the Catholic Church. (English version) Vatican: the Holy See. 8/17/02. www.vatican.va/archive/catechism
Geisler, Norman L. Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1999)
Hendin, Herbert. Seduced by Death: Doctors, Patients, and the Dutch Cure. (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1997)
Humphry, Derek, and Ann Wickett. The Right to Die: Understanding Euthanasia. (New York: Harper & Row, 1986)
Kevorkian, Jack. Prescription: Medicide: The Goodness of Planned Death. (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1991)
Moreland, J. P., and Scott B. Rae. Body & Soul. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000)
Noebel, David A. The Battle for Truth. (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2001)
Rushdoony, Rousas John. The Institutes of Biblical Law. (The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1973)
Shavelson, Lonny. A Chosen Death. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995)
The Quest Study Bible, New International Version. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1994)
Torr, James D., ed. Euthanasia: Opposing Viewpoints. Opposing Viewpoints Series. (New York: Harper & Row, 1986)
Yount, Lisa. Euthanasia. Lucent Overview Series. (San Diego: Lucent Books, 2001)
[1] Jack Kevorkian. Prescription: Medicide: The Goodness of Planned Death. (New York: Prometheus Books, 1991) 146-149[2] Ibid. 153-154
[3] Lisa Yount. Euthanasia. Lucent Overview Series. ( San Diego : Lucent Books, 2001) 6
[4] Sophocles, qtd. in James D. Torr, ed. Euthanasia: Opposing Viewpoints. Opposing Viewpoints Series. (San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2000) 14
[5] Aristotle, qtd. in Derek Humphry and Ann Wickett. The Right to Die: Understanding Euthanasia. (New York: Harper & Row, 1986) 3
[6] Humphry and Wickett. The Right to Die. 5-6
[7] Timothy Quill, qtd. in Yount. Euthanasia. 30
[8] Kevorkian. Prescription: Medicide. 188
[11] Herbert Hendin. Seduced by Death: Doctors, Patients, and the Dutch Cure. (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1997) 23
[12] Yount. Euthanasia. 64
[13] Ibid. 66
[14] Torr. Euthanasia: Opposing Viewpoints. 152
[15] Kevorkian, Prescription: Medicide, 181
[16] Ibid. 242
[17] Ibid. 243
[18] Mason Olds, qtd. in David A. Noebel. The Battle for Truth. (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2001) 88
[19] Arthur E. Gravatt, qtd. in Noebel. The Battle for Truth. 88
[20] Humphry and Wickett. The Right to Die. 12
[21] Noebel. The Battle for Truth. 97
[22] Leon R. Kass and Nelson Lund. “Courting Death: Assisted Suicide, Doctors, and the Law.” Euthanasia: Opposing Viewpoints. Ed. Torr, 185
[23] G. K. Chesterton, qtd. in Lonny Shavelson. A Chosen Death. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995) 105
[24] Noebel. The Battle for Truth. 40
[25] Shirley MacLaine, qtd. in Noebel. The Battle for Truth. 101
[26] Noebel. The Battle for Truth. 104
[27] The Quest Study Bible, New International Version. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1994) Genesis 1:27
[28] J. P. Moreland and Scott B. Rae. Body and Soul. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000) 17
[29] Norman L. Geisler. Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1999) 501
[30] Ibid. 502
[31] The Quest Study Bible, NIV. Deuteronomy 5:17
[32] Rousas John Rushdoony. The Institutes of Biblical Law. (The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1973) 219
[33] Rushdoony. The Institutes of Biblical Law. 222
[34] Ibid. Part 3; sect. 2; chp. 2; article 5; 2276-2277.
[35] The Quest Study Bible, NIV. Proverbs 31:6-7
[36] Ibid. I Kings 19:1-9
[37] Ibid. Jonah 4
[38] Ibid. Judges 16:30
[39] Ibid. Judges 15:20
[40] Ibid. Job 2:7
[41] Ibid. Job 10:1
[42] Ibid. Job 2:9
[43] Ibid. Job 2:10
[44] Ibid. Luke 10:25-37
[45] Ibid. I Samuel 31:4b-5
[46] Ibid. II Samuel 1:9-10a
[47] Ibid. Acts 16:27-28
[48] Ibid. Exodus 4:11
[49] Ibid. Proverbs 3:27
[50] Ibid. James 4:17
[51] Catechism of the Catholic Church. Part 3; sect. 2; chp. 2; article 5; 2278-2279.
[52] Moreland and Rae. Body & Soul. 337
[53] Moreland and Rae. Body & Soul. 345