Physician-assisted suicide was the subject of discussion at the Sunday meeting of the Lutheran Circuit Convocation convening at Christ Lutheran Church near Bouton.
About 40 people attended the talk by Rev. James I. Lamb, former director of Lutherans for Life and currently a member of the Sanctity of Life Committee in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod Life Ministries, and Rev. Max Phillips, pastor of the Christ Lutheran Church.
Phillips spoke of “two very old arguments” used in support of assisted suicide. “The fist one is an argument for evolution. Evolutionists teach that we all came from each other, that we evolved over time, and you’re just another animal. And frankly your life is worth no more than another animal. If you tried to go out and kill a dolphin today, you’d probably get a lot more problems than if you tried to kill me. The reason is is because we teach each other that life is precious, and animal life is the same as your life. And what do we do with animals when they suffer? We put them down. Why don’t we do that for grandma?”
The second old argument, Phillips said, is “choice, this argument of pro-choice. That permeates in society now. It’s happened since 1973 in the world of ending babies’ lives. It’s choice. It’s somebody’s choice. In this case, ‘death with dignity’ means they get to choose. You see how these two arguments work together in this next generation of issue that is trying to be solved here.”
Phillips said acceptance of the idea of death with dignity and the right to die is seeping into society because of the liberal media and public schooling.
“Media coverage is up 500 percent on this issue,” Phillips said. “And why? It’s not the issue ‘This is terrible. This is bad.’ No, it’s ‘This is necessary. This is helpful. This is humane.'” He warned that a judicial ruling in Iowa could legalize medical aid in dying in the same way the Iowa Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage or “homosexual marriage,” as Phillips said he prefers to call the practice.
Phillips brought forth a number of video examples or case studies to illustrate the issue, often including the views of people experiencing “a great deal of suffering physically” and also of religious spokespersons.
“We understand that suffering,” Phillips said, “and we’re not trying to be mean about this. The pastor that we heard didn’t say a lot about God’s will or God’s law or any of those things because he’s learned that in these political battles, you have to have two lexicons. You have to be able to speak about it in a way that’s secular and keeps it in the context of what others would understand, and you have to be able to speak about it in the language of the church.”
He said the right-to-die campaign is largely funded by billionaire businessman George Soros under a group called Compassionate Choice, with support from the American Civil Liberties Union and other liberal groups, such as the American Medical Student Association, the American Public Health Association and others, including the Unitarian Church.
In his turn, Lamb offered strong scriptural reasons to oppose medical aid in dying.
“It is a big deal,” Lamb said. “You and I weren’t produced on some assembly line in China. We were crafted, knit together by God’s own hands in our mothers’ wombs. We were given life by the one who created and sustains everything, and it’s not just any old life to do with as we please, to dispose of when it’s no longer convenient to us or to those around us. But it’s life as God’s own temple, the place where the Holy Spirit dwells, and where God is, well, that place is sacred. It’s holy, and it’s deserving of respect and care, no matter what our eyes and reason may tell us.”
Lamb cited a number of Biblical passages: Romans 5:3, 2 Corinthians 1:4, James 1:2, Hebrews 12:10 and others.
“God uses suffering to discipline us,” Lamb said. “But people cross the line between wanting to help grandma and maybe just sending her to Jesus. People cross that line, and they use that whole argument, ‘Well, we’ll be better off in heaven, so let’s end the suffering by doing it that way.'”
That might be the oldest argument of all, and “that is a way that they attack Christians,” Phillips noted. “They say, ‘Well, you’re going to heaven, aren’t you? Then wouldn’t you want to get there as soon as you can?'”
Preaching with Lamb and Phillips against doctor-assisted suicide was Rev. Timothy Jones of the Trinity Lutheran Church in Jefferson.
Other clergymen attending the assembly included Rev. Stephen Ude of the Christ Lutheran Church in Bouton and the Trinity Lutheran Church in Boone, Rev. Ken Bose of the Trinity Lutheran Church in Perry and Rev. Todd Jenks of the St. Paul Lutheran Church in Ames.
Various forms of voluntary euthanasia and assisted suicide are today legal in Colombia, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Canada and in six U.S. states: California, Oregon, Washington, Montana, Colorado and Vermont.
Oregon first passed the Oregon Death with Dignity Act in 1997. Contrary to some predictions, the tourist migrations to Colorado by consumers seeking its legal cannabis — a form of palliative self-treatment — have been significantly higher than the relocations to Oregon by people seeking medially assisted suicide.
According to a 2015 issue of the Journal of Palliative Medicine, Oregon’s in-hospital death rates are the lowest in the nation. The state’s at-home death rates are the highest in the nation, and violent suicide among hospice patients has been reduced significantly.
The people at the Circuit Convocation joined in singing the hymn, “Abide with Me,” with its fitting lyrics of suffering and death.
Abide with me. Fast falls the eventide.
The darkness deepens. Lord, with me abide.
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me.
Hold now your Word before my closing eyes.
Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies.
Heaven’s morning breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee.
In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.
