At IFI, we seek to raise awareness of and address cultural and political trends here in Illinois and throughout the nation. An increasing number of these trends pose a threat to human dignity, endangering the lives of image-bearers of the living God from conception to natural death.

Recently, we received a response to this article about the push to legalize physician-assisted suicide (PAS) in Illinois. The writer, a hospice nurse, disagreed strongly with our stance concerning the risks of legalization, accusing us of making “despicable” assertions and claiming to know for certain that we are wrong. Her reasoning featured some of the common arguments for PAS, which we’ll respond to below.

You might wonder why we would take the time to address this. In this brave new world of ever-changing technologies and at a time when appeals to empathy and compassion are commonly used to advance political aims, we must familiarize ourselves with the arguments that will be leveled against us.

Many Christians have been and are confused by this kind of reasoning.

In her email, the writer challenged us to produce evidence for our assertions. She closed by saying that if we cannot prove them, we’re just like liberals who only argue from emotion. Make no mistake, this is an emotionally charged topic. Lives are at stake, so it should be. However, the claims made in the article are also rooted in fact.

Sadly, with the spread of euthanasia and PAS in the West, there is legitimate reason for concern.

The first two items on which the writer disagreed were that

a) No doctor has a crystal ball. An assisted suicide law could cause patients to take their lives based on inaccurate predictions about their life expectancies and

b) Legalizing assisted suicide would create a culture in which terminally ill persons believe that they have a “duty to die.”

Her response:

“You demonstrate an inability to appreciate the dignity and integrity of patients, family members, hospice doctors, nurses, aides, social services staff and chaplains!”

It can’t be ignored that after accusing us of emotionalism, the writer appeals to emotion here. Just because a patient and his or her care team have generally good intentions does not mean they cannot make mistakes. Medicine is not God, so it follows that doctors cannot possibly know for certain when a patient will die.

We cannot “prove” this claim since there is no way to know how long someone would have lived after they are dead, but there are countless stories of someone receiving a prognosis only to outlive it. In fact, many times, when a patient enters hospice care and their symptoms are managed, they live longer than their prognosis.

To end your life based on a doctor’s prediction of how long you have is to place your faith in an inherently flawed human, not the God who made you and knows the length of your days.

We must also remember that even the best of intentions, when rooted in a godless worldview, can and will lead to evil outcomes. It ought to cause us to pause any time a physician, who has taken an oath to “first do no harm,” finds his or her way to becoming a willing accomplice in a patient’s suicide.

The risk of patients feeling a “duty to die” is rooted in the larger context of our nation’s increasing slide into humanism, materialism, utilitarianism, and a pathological avoidance of suffering. There simply is no way to guard perfectly against coercion in the life of the patient.

As Family Research Council Director of the Center for Human Dignity Mary Szoch states about the Illinois legislation,

“According to the latest data from Oregon, fear of being a burden to friends and family is the fifth most common reason people choose assisted suicide. Coercion can be subtle. It can be the long sighs or the grumpy interactions that cause a person to feel like their existence is no longer wanted, or coercion can be overt — an heir to the estate who pressures or even forces the patient to take the suicide drugs. Since there is no requirement for an independent witness to be present at the time the drugs are taken, and there’s no requirement for a mental health evaluation, if SB 9 passes, either is possible.”

Particularly in the West, where many people experience the privilege of being able to avoid much if not all forms of inconvenience, let alone suffering, disability is viewed as the worst-case scenario. There can be no doubt that the men and women who face degenerative disease and terminal diagnoses get the message that many of their peers think they would be better off dead.

Add to this the risks to those suffering from depression and other mental illnesses, and you can see how easily someone could be “tipped” over into choosing an early death. Coercion, while often personal, can also be societal.

The third and final claim our writer took issue with was this: Assisted suicide would give insurers—whether state-run or private—a financial incentive to cover lethal drugs, but not costly life-saving treatments. No one should feel pressured into choosing assisted suicide for financial reasons, or because they fear becoming a burden upon others close to them.

Our reader’s response:

“I understand being cynical about insurance companies, and many of the decisions they make are unconscionable to me, but this idea is so far out, that it’s ridiculous.”

Sadly, there are documented cases of this very thing taking place, either at the hands of insurers or hospital systems:

• A healthy Canadian Paralympian who was offered “medically assisted death” instead of the wheelchair lift she was waiting to have installed in her home.

• A terminally ill mom from California who was denied treatment but offered a suicide drug instead.

• A physician who was seeking insurance coverage to treat two patients in states where PAS was legal, but was denied and offered assistance in ending their lives instead.

• A Canadian woman who was offered euthanasia or PAS multiple times throughout her breast cancer battle.

Toward the end of the email, the reader asked,

“Why do you think that you … know more about the topic than the community of hospice staff with the patient at the center, making the difficult choice for themselves?”

We can agree that end-of-life decisions are deeply personal, but that does not place them off-limits for ethical scrutiny. Medical training does not confer moral or ethical infallibility.

We can and must consider the implications of pro-death policies. While our friend may believe that legalizing PAS in Illinois will only yield positive outcomes, that is wishful thinking at best.

Proponents of PAS may think the policy only concerns patients who are seeking physician-assisted suicide, but the effects are much more far-reaching. If PAS is legalized in Illinois, it will not only impact those who face a terminal diagnosis and their family members, but also the medical professionals who will endure moral injury by participating, and other insurance policyholders who will, by extension, fund the deaths of fellow image-bearers.

As time passes, Illinoisans are at risk of becoming desensitized to the culture of death already on the march.

Physician-assisted suicide is not purely personal, nor is it benign, no matter how badly some might wish it to be.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to email both your state senator and state representative to ask them to vote NO. If it passes in the Illinois House, it will move quickly to the Illinois Senate for concurrence and then be sent to the governor.