Religion and euthanasia

• Religion and euthanasia

Death is one of the most important things that religions deal with.

All faiths offer meaning and explanations for death and dying; all faiths try to find a place for death and dying within human experience.

For those left behind when someone dies religions provide rituals to mark death, and ceremonies to remember those who have died.

Religions provide understanding and comfort for those who are facing death.

Religions regard understanding death and dying as vital to finding meaning in human life. Dying is often seen as an occasion for getting powerful spiritual insights as well as for preparing for whatever afterlife may be to come.

So it's not surprising that all faiths have strong views on euthanasia.

Most religions disapprove of euthanasia. Some of them absolutely forbid it. The Roman Catholic church, for example, is one of the most active organisations in opposing euthanasia.

Virtually all religions state that those who become vulnerable through illness or disability deserve special care and protection, and that proper end of life care is a much better thing than euthanasia.

Religions are opposed to euthanasia for a number of reasons.

• God has forbidden it

• virtually all religions with a supreme God have a command from God in their scriptures that says 'you must not kill'
• this is usually interpreted as meaning 'you must not kill innocent human beings'
• this rules out euthanasia (and suicide) as well as murder, as carrying out any of these would be against God's orders, and would be an attack on the sovereignity of God

• Human life is sacred

• human lives are special because God created them
• therefore human life should be protected and preserved, whatever happens
• therefore we shouldn't interfere with God's plans by shortening human lives

• Human life is special

• human beings are made in God's image
• therefore they have a special value and dignity
• this value doesn't depend on the quality of a particular life
• taking a life violates that special value and dignity
• even if it's one's own life
• even if that life is full of pain and suffering

• Eastern religions

Some Eastern religions take a different approach. The key ideas in their attitudes to death are achieving freedom from mortal life, and not-harming living beings.        Euthanasia clearly conflicts with the second of these, and it interferes with the first.

• Freedom from mortal life

• Hinduism and Buddhism see mortal life as part of a continuing cycle in which we are born, live, die, and are reborn over and over again
• the ultimate aim of each being is to get free of this cycle, and so be completely liberated from the material world
• during each cycle of life and death human beings make progress towards their ultimate liberation
• how they live and how they die play a vital part in deciding what their next life will be, and so in shaping their journey to liberation
• shortening life interferes with the working out of the laws that govern this process (the laws of karma), and so interferes with a human being's journey to liberation

Warning: this 'explanation' is very over-simplified; there's much more to these religious ideas than is written here.

• Non-harm - the principle of ahimsa

• Hinduism and Buddhism regard all life (not just human life) as involved in the process above
• therefore they say that we should try to avoid harming living things
• this rules out killing people, even if they want to die

Religious people often refer to the sanctity of life, or say that human life is sacred. They usually mean something like this:

God gives people life, so only God has the right to take it away.

You can look at that sentence in several ways. Here are three:

• God gave us our lives
• we owe our lives to God
• God is the final authority over our lives
• we must not interfere in the ending of our lives
• God is intimately involved in our lives
• God was intimately involved in our births
• God will be intimately involved in our deaths
• it would be wrong to try and shut God out of our dying
• we should not interfere in the way God has chosen for our lives to end
• God gave us our lives
• we are only stewards of our bodies, and are responsible to God for them
• we must use our bodies as God intended us to
• we must allow our lives (our stewardship) to end at the time and in the way God wants

• General Christian view

Christians are mostly against euthanasia. The arguments are usually based on the beliefs that life is given by God, and that human beings are made in God's image. Some churches also emphasise the importance of not interfering with the natural process of death.                                                                                                                                                        

Life is a gift from God

• all life is God-given
• birth and death are part of the life processes which God has created, so we should respect them
• therefore no human being has the authority to take the life of any innocent person, even if that person wants to die

Human beings are valuable because they are made in God's image

• human life possesses an intrinsic dignity and value because it is created by God in his own image for the distinctive destiny of sharing in God's own life
• saying that God created humankind in his own image doesn't mean that people actually look like God, but that people have a unique capacity for rational existence that enables them to see what is good and to want what is good
• as people develop these abilities they live a life that is as close as possible to God's life of love
• this is a good thing, and life should be preserved so that people can go on doing this
• to propose euthanasia for an individual is to judge that the current life of that individual is not worthwhile
• such a judgement is incompatible with recognising the worth and dignity of the person to be killed
• therefore arguements based on the quality of life are completely irrelevant
• nor should anyone ask for euthanasia for themselves because no-one has the right to value anyone, even themselves, as worthless

The process of dying is spiritually important, and should not be disrupted

• Many churches believe that the period just before death is a profoundly spiritual time
• They think it is wrong to interfere with the process of dying, as this would interrupt the process of the spirit moving towards God

All human lives are equally valuable

Christians believe that the intrinsic dignity and value of human lives means that the value of each human life is identical. They don't think that human dignity and value are measured by mobility, intelligence, or any achievements in life.

Valuing human beings as equal just because they are human beings has clear implications for thinking about euthanasia:

• patients in a persistent vegetative state, although seriously damaged, remain living human beings, and so their intrinsic value remains the same as anyone else's
• so it would be wrong to treat their lives as worthless and to conclude that they 'would be better off dead'
• patients who are old or sick, and who are near the end of earthly life have the same value as any other human being
• people who have mental or physical handicaps have the same value as any other human being

Exceptions and omissions

Some features of Christianity suggest that there are some obligations that go against the general view that euthanasia is a bad thing:                                                                                             

• Christianity requires us to respect every human being
• If we respect a person we should respect their decisions about the end of their life
• We should accept their rational decisions to refuse burdensome and futile treatment
• Perhaps we should accept their rational decision to refuse excessively burdensome treatment even if it may provide several weeks more of life

End of life care

The Christian faith leads those who follow it to some clear-cut views about the way terminally ill patients should be treated:

• the community should care for people who are dying, and for those who are close to them
• the community should provide the best possible palliative care
• the community should face death and dying with honesty and support
• the community should recognise that when people suffer death on earth they entrust their future to the risen Christ
• religious people, both lay and professional, should help the terminally ill to prepare for death
• they should be open to their hopes and fears
• they should be open to discussion

• The Roman Catholic view

Euthanasia is a grave violation of the law of God, since it is the deliberate and morally unacceptable killing of a human person.                                                           Pope John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, 1995

The Roman Catholic church regards euthanasia as morally wrong. It has always taught the absolute and unchanging value of the commandment "You shall not kill".

The church has said that:

nothing and no one can in any way permit the killing of an innocent human being, whether a foetus or an embryo, an infant or an adult, an old person, or one suffering from an incurable disease, or a person who is dying.

Pope John Paul II has spoken out against what he calls a 'culture of death' in modern society, and said that human beings should always prefer the way of life to the way of death.

The church regards any law permitting euthanasia as an intrinsically unjust law.

• The value of life

Life is a thing of value in itself; it's value doesn't depend on the extent that it brings pleasure and well-being.

This means that suffering and pain do not stop life being valuable, and are not a reason for ending life.

The church believes that each person should enter the dying process with all its mysteries with trust in God and in solidarity with their fellow human beings; they should die with the dignity of letting themselves be loved unconditionally.                                                                         

As Catholic leaders and moral teachers, we believe that life is the most basic gift of a loving God--a gift over which we have stewardship but not absolute dominion. National Conference of Catholic Bishops (USA), 1991

The right to die

The Roman Catholic church does not accept that human beings have a right to die.

Human beings are free agents, but their freedom does not extend to the ending of their own lives. Euthanasia and suicide are both a rejection of God's absolute sovereignty over life and death.

The church believes that each human life is a manifestation of God in the world, a sign of his presence, a trace of his glory. "The life which God offers to man is a gift by which God shares something of himself with his creature."

A human being who insists that they have the 'right to die' is denying the truth of their fundamental relationship with God.

• Refusing aggressive medical treatment

The church regards it as morally acceptable to refuse extraordinary and aggressive medical means to preserve life. Refusing such treatment is not euthanasia but a proper acceptance of the human condition in the face of death.

• Assisting suicide

Since it is morally wrong to commit suicide it is morally wrong to help someone commit suicide.

True compassion leads to sharing another's pain; it does not kill the person whose suffering we cannot bear.                                                                                                              Pope John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, 1995