Physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia advocates always make their case by pointing to the suffering of the terminally ill. They tug on our heart strings, and promise that if only we’ll legalize PAS/EUTH, it will be limited to the terminally ill who are in their last stages of life and cannot bear the pain of their disease and want to die.
That is how it starts out, but eventually, the scope of those eligible for PAS/EUTH always widens to encompass more and more people – either by changing the law, or just flouting the law. The first requirement to go is usually the time-frame. If PAS/EUTH is good enough in the last 6 or 12 months of a person’s life, well, why not allow it a little before? Eventually, time limits don’t matter. Next to slip is the requirement that one be terminally ill. Any illness that causes unbearable pain will do. But, if PAS/EUTH is the answer to pain, and pain comes in both physical and emotional forms, then why limit PAS/EUTH to just those who are suffering from physical pain? So the tent gets widened to include those who are depressed and cannot bear life as well. Indeed, if PAS/EUTH is a compassionate answer to pain, then why is consent even needed? Doctor’s and parents should be allowed to kill babies born with severe medical problems, whose quality of life is deemed to be too low to be worth living (or let live). The fact of the matter is that there’s no end in sight when death is seen as a good way to end human suffering, which is why every European country that has legalized PAS/EUTH has followed this slippery slope one way or another.
A recent example of the PAS/EUTH slippery slope was when deaf Dutch twins were euthanized in Belgium because they were going blind and couldn’t bear the thought of not seeing one another again. Now, it just happened in the Netherlands too. A woman obsessed with cleanliness became blind, and couldn’t take the fact that she could no longer see what was dirty and needed to be cleaned. She asked to die, and the Dutch obliged her, despite their “strict conditions” for euthanasia.
The culture of death is never happy until everyone is eligible for death-on-demand.
HT: Wesley J. Smith
See also:
- Euthanasia will not stay limited to the suffering, terminally ill
- The Dutch Descent into Euthanasia Madness
Thinking to Believe 
October 10, 2013 at 4:06 pm
I read this , this morning. Its so sad that there are so many diseases and desperate life sitautions. I care for the elderly and their sincerity in telling me thry have no hope with all of their desperate health needs makes my heart break, I try to be as gentle as possible and remind them of all the wonderful things the still have in life, their family, kids, grandkids, God is with them it truly is heart wrenching to see the loss the pain and not know that God is there to comfort them through us. One of the reasons i left corporate america was to be a help and show compassion to those who dont feel it anymore. I font support uthination, but i understand the desperate feeling
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October 11, 2013 at 5:36 am
I think the argument is whether you think one ought to have the right to die. Whether they are terminally ill or not is surely beside the point. The only time it becomes problematic is when someone cannot enforce their own death (for some reason or other). I’m somewhat sympathetic to those that wish to commit suicide, but ultimately, I believe that suicide is sinful and it becomes hard to separate those that are going through a low ebb, those that truly want to die, and those that feel it is better for others if they’re dead…
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October 16, 2013 at 7:29 am
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2013/06/10/amateur-theologians-you-cant-be-a-determinist-and-feel-like-you-have-free-will/#comment-574297 how would you respond
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