Physician Assisted Suicide

The following was adopted as our official statement regarding Physician Assisted Suicide 2004.

Physician Assisted Suicide is one of the profound ethical issues conronting America today. With moral relativism directing a quality of life ethics, physician-assisted suicide is being advocated as a "light." And it is even being suggested that the lives of some people are not worth living, and accordingly they should be encouraged, for the sake of the themselves, family or society, to end their lives.

The primary legal issue is whether the so-called "right to die" should be considered a liberty interest protected under Section 1 of the 14th Amendment; subsidiary legal arguments supporting physician-assisted suicide revolve around alleviating severe pain and exerccising personal autonomy. But the underlying moral issue is far more profound. This matter of life and death involves our relationship with one another on the human level, and the relationship of each of us with God.

We believe that life is a gift from God, and that human life has absolute, not relative, physical value. Death is a significant transition that all human bodies come to. The physical and emotional suffering that may precede physical death can be very grievous, but it may also spiritually enrich us, and afford a last opportunity for reconciliation with freinds, famiy, and us, and afford a last opportunity for reconciliation with friends, family, and God. While we firmly believe in mercy and compassion, that belief does not give anyone license to play God. We believe there is a profound moral distiction between allowing a person to die, on the one hand, and killing on the other (Deut 5:17). We affirm the ethic "always to care, never to kill."

We pray earnestly that the Supreme Court will not attempt to interpret the constitution as giving a right to physician-assisted suicide. We also pray that the Court will not leave this matter to the States, which would mean each State woiuld be free to pass legislation permitting doctors to end the lives of their patients under cerain circumstances. As evangelicals we deny that there are any circumstances, which justify euthanasia, with or without consent. Therefore, the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), expresses its firm opposition to State legistlation, which would legalize physician-assisted suicide. And NAE and Word for the World Family Church would support federal legislation to ensure that federal tax dollars will never be used to pay for or promote physician-assisted suicide.

We recognize the pressing need to alleviate the sever pain, which may precede death. Medical experts say that ninety-nine percent of such pain can be adequately managed, yet twenty-five percent of those with pain do not benefit from medical treatment, which would statisfactorily alleviate the pain.

We appeal to the medical profession to do all in it's power to close the gap between the knowledge of how to cope with pain therapeutically and the application of that knowldege to anyone needlessly suffering pain.

While for the believing Christian - to die is gain, it is wrong to intrude upon God's prerogative by advancing that day. Rather we look to our Lord Jesus Christ to sustain us.

Copied from a Resolution Adopted by the 55th Annual Meeting of the National Association of Evangelicals.



When a person gives his or her life to Christ. No longer do they really have a choice to die. They are CHRIST'S. The believers hope is Heaven in HIS timing not in ours. Giving a person an overdoes to end his life is biblically called murder. Life starts at conception but does not end at death. Death is an entry to Everlasting Habitations. If you are a believer, your Everlasting Habitation will be a place called, "Heaven". If you are a non-believer, your Everlasting Habitation will be a place full of eternal sorrow, pain, grief, darkness and fire and brimestone. That Everlasting Habitation is called, "Hell". To end human life as we know it on earth is to open a doorway for a place in eternity.