Why am I pro-life? Because killing innocent people is wrong. Whether aborting a newly conceived baby in the womb or assisting a terminally ill elderly person with suicide, murder should be unthinkable. If someone wants to commit suicide, that’s wrong & tragic, but it’s self-inflicted. But to aid someone in the act takes the form of euthanasia.
This Sunday is “Sanctity of Human Life” Sunday because on Jan. 22, 1973 the infamous Roe v. Wade case legalized abortion in America. More than 62 million babies were killed in this way. Thankfully, that ruling was finally overturned in 2022, resulting in many babies spared from death in many states, & many women spared from regret & guilt (though tragically not here in Michigan).
The crux of the matter is always the question: “What is it in the womb?” It’s not just a blob of tissue, a benign kind of tumor, or a “potential” human being. Nobody cries or feels brokenness & self-loathing over having an appendix removed. It’s simply factual that what is conceived is not just part of a woman’s body, but a separate, distinct, alive & growing person at the earliest stages of development. It is a baby with his or her own unique genetic code. You didn’t come from an embryo, you were one. You’re the same person, just larger & more developed. You shouldn’t need an M.D. or Ph.D. to understand what is clear from not only biological science but also moral intuition.
Besides the political efforts to keep abortion legal, the next travesty is legalizing assisted suicide. A 2020 Gallup poll already shows 3 out of 4 U.S. adults say doctors should be allowed to end the life of a patient with an “incurable” disease if the patient requests it. So far 10 States & D.C. have legalized doctor-prescribed death (Oregon was the first in 1997). Yet it was first in Michigan that Dr. Jack Kevorkian became famous for practicing assisted suicide in the 1990s with over 40 people. His first public assisted suicide was of a 54-year-old woman with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. In 1998 he personally killed a patient with a lethal injection, & was found guilty of murder.
Since then Michigan has protected the medically frail, disabled, & elderly by prohibiting doctors from prescribing assisted suicide drugs. But last Nov. the so-called “Death with Dignity Act” was introduced in the Michigan Senate to repeal the ban on physician-assisted suicide (PAS). Under the pretense of offering “Medical Aid in Dying,” (MAiD), it places vulnerable people at risk for coercion, abuse, & denial of care. Instead of seeking to eliminate suffering, PAS seeks to eliminate those who suffer. This would turn our healers into killers.
Though for now, it would relate to those who are “terminally” ill, it would inevitably be broadened to anyone with simply an “incurable” disease. It could even follow the same slippery slope as in Canada where it was introduced with the terminally ill, to then anyone with an “incurable” condition, to now this year include anyone “mentally ill.” If it’s labeled as “medical care,” then it becomes a “right” that cannot be denied to anyone, even minors. Canadians are being groomed to think this is not only acceptable, but a good thing.
Back in Oct. our church hosted a pro-life event featuring Alex Schadenberg, the Exec. Dir. of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition in Canada. He offered a number of warnings to us here about what has happened in Canada & elsewhere. You can check his writings at: alexschadenberg.blogspot.com.
The American Medical Association currently declares: “Physician-assisted suicide is fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer, would be difficult or impossible to control, and would pose serious societal risks. Instead of engaging in assisted suicide, physicians must aggressively respond to the needs of patients at the end of life.” Hospice & palliative care should be offered to the terminally ill instead of discriminating against them from the suicide prevention resources & services professionally required for everyone else.
You can find more resources at: bettercaremi.org/additional-resources. This is not just a political issue, but a deeply biblical & moral one, so in MI, you can call and/or email your State Senators today & ask them to vote NO on physician-assisted suicide (SB. 678-681): rtl.org/legislation/find-your-legislator.
If we don’t value life, everything else crumbles.