What does Christian Theology contribute to the Assisted Dying Debate?
The article concludes:
What all proposals on assisted dying do is make a fundamental assumption about what it means to be human. It has to assume that we are rational, that we are immune to coercion, that to be a burden is problematic, that we are individuals who are not embedded in community and relationships, and that we can perfectly predict the future. It is on this last point that point 7 in my initial list bears most fruit. What would happen to those struggling with depression who feel suicidal, if they were offered assisted dying each time? Is there really no future for people who go through such things? As John Wyatt summarises:
“And can we or others always detect the covert influences and emotional factors which lie behind our choices? In the words of Professor Nigel Biggar, the notion that we are all rational choosers is a flattering lie told us by people who want to sell us something. If Freud has taught the heirs of modernity anything, it is the uncomfortable truth that much of the time we are influenced and motivated by social and psychological forces that we barely understand.”
That is why the distinctively Christian idea of the sanctity of life, arising from the belief that life is, in the end, a gift from God, provides the essential resources that even a secular society needs to live well. No secular belief system can offer what secular life actually needs.
What does Christian theology contribute to the assisted dying debate?
For a medical Response against Assisted suicide published in the British Medical Journal(BMJ) see