Should Doctors Medically Assist Someone's Death?

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00:00

So, you know as you think through like sexual ethics in general you know most of our understanding of sexual ethics is

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Now hanging on by a thread and it's only hanging on by a thread as it relates to the topic of consent

00:14

So adultery is fine. It's okay because it's to consenting adult homosexuality is fine because it's to consenting adults

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We're not yet at bestiality because you know, there's the idea that the animal can't consent, right?

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Necessarily, yeah, I'm not sure the more we humanize animals and we may you know violate that line

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You All right,

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Tim, so the question for today's episode is should doctors medically assist someone's death

01:01

Yeah, well no Short and concise. All right guys, that's the episode.

01:08

The Bible says thou shalt not kill, right? So I think we Stay away from that kind of thing All right.

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Well here before Let me help you try and reconsider your position

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I found this article that I want to read to you and I think it presents a pretty compelling argument

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As to why we should probably should support this. So let me let me try and convince you this comes from compassion and choices org, it's the

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First website that came up when I was googling The terms to make sure that to make sure

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I was I was using You know the same terms that everyone who is for this is using the first Yeah, if it's the first result that means it's the best right?

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That means it's the truest. So the truest All right So so the the name of the the entire article is medical aid and dying is not assisted suicide suicide or euthanasia and then the very first section of the article says medical aid and dying is

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Fundamentally different from euthanasia and it said now, you know, this is a pretty good argument

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I'm gonna say this is a pretty good argument. I don't know how you're gonna overcome this While both practices are designed to bring about a peaceful death the distinction between the two comes down to who?

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administers the means to that peaceful death Euthanasia is an intentional act by which another person not the dying person administers the medication

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By contrast and here's the kicker Tim. This is going to get you by contrast

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Medical aid and dying requires the patient to be able to take the medication themselves and therefore

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Always remain in control. So I Don't know about you Tim, but I think

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I got you on that one It's not suicide it's not assisted suicide

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Yeah, I'm trying to imagine how this works so it's not suicide and it's not assisted

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Yeah, you know, it's kind of like it's kind of like if you knew if you had a friend who was like, hey, man

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I'm in a really bad place right now and you're like, okay cool. Here's a bunch of pills like You're clean man

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Come on, that's not convincing to you Well, it's one of those things it it's doing violence to the concept of suicide and then it's also doing violence to the concept of assisted suicide because I Mean supposedly supposedly if you give them the means to kill themself and They take it himself.

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Here's the rope man Here's the gun somehow then somehow both people are morally absorbed of the responsibility for the act because it was yeah

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Yeah, and when the cops show up at your door, you're like, whoa, hang on what I just gave him a rope

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I mean if he got the rope himself, that would be suicide and Then if you

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Like put the rope around his neck and kick the chair out from under his feet and that would have been assisted suicide

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But if you give them the rope and they use it themselves Then no one's to blame, right?

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I Mean besides that one of the things that's funny about it though is

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I mean besides just how convoluted of logic this is yeah, that's just a imagine imagine what we're you know on the day of judgment and You were you're the person who helped someone?

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Kill themselves, right? Imagine going before God and saying hey,

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I just gave them the medication they took it Well, then imagine them on the other side saying it wasn't suicide because they gave me the medic

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So it's a convoluted mess of like we just like to take we've taken these terms and we've just yeah

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I mean just make them whatever we want them to be at this point. Yeah, I've played it at this point but what's what's interesting about though is just the primacy of the individual choice at that point and it seems like the morality of everything, you know as it relates to Topics like this that used to be considered taboo

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There's few things that are left over in terms of like the old morality And what's left over is this idea of consent consent essentially is the most important Aspect of any moral transaction in the minds of many people

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So, you know as you think through like sexual ethics in general you know, most of our understanding of sexual ethics is

06:00

Now hanging on by a thread and it's only hanging on by a thread as it relates to the topic of consent

06:06

So adultery is fine is okay, because it's to consenting adult homosexuality is fine because it's to consenting adults

06:12

We're not yet at bestiality because you know, there's the idea that the animal can't consent, right?

06:19

Necessarily, yeah I'm not sure the more we humanize animals and we may you know violate that that dog was asking for it

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You see the way he you know wagged his tail or whatever so but then like with children like pedophilia like that don't the reason why we're still holding on to that is because this notion of consent and and the reason why rape is still wrong is because Consent is what's left over and so and even with the pedophilia thing

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I mean, uh, that's I mean, it's about to go that's gonna go. Yes, especially when you when you're fine with Letting kids do all these other things

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Yes, so they can self -identify if a man like a boy can self -identify as a girl Then like you've done violence to the idea that you can't consent to certain moral actions below a certain age

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So that's about to go but what I'm trying to say is that the only thing left over of sexual immorality is the idea of consent and You carry that over into this discussion of suicide assisted suicide and you know

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What what's happened? Is it that if you choose the act yourself? Then that's a triumphant act of bravery at that point

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Right as long as you're in control as long as you're making that choice And and so I think this is just another example of how the morality morality is defined by you know

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Consent is just utterly insufficient and wholly inadequate to to address the nature of the topic in general yeah, and so when it come when it comes to I mean, this is something that Yeah, I mean even in the

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Old Testament like people killing themselves happens right or or people even

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You know, like I think it's I guess it's Saul who

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I can't remember who they're fighting But they get overrun essentially and he he tells a sword bearer to run him through with a sword

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Right and right and and so you this is not an idea That's foreign to the

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Bible and and really normally it's presented as like an act of cowardice

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Right, but it's an act of cowardice. And and so The servant actually did that and then another servant

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Saw it and he reported back to David and he was trying to take credit for it essentially So he's trying to take credit for it and because he wanted

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David to know he was on his side But you know David put him to death for the act itself And he didn't even actually do it and so David put him to death and you know how

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The the logic of it was, you know, how dare you lay your hand against the Lord's anointed in that way Weren't you afraid to do that and because you weren't afraid then, you know, if you would kill him you would kill me essentially

09:04

Yeah, yeah, but then what's undergirding even that it's just the notion that I shall not kill right?

09:10

You should you shall not kill so You know in the in the Old Covenant you have Yeah idea if you shall not kill and you know, we shouldn't want anything to do with now

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Okay, so we shouldn't kill right but then Murder, we shouldn't we shouldn't murder.

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But then if someone you know Typically murder is the you know the unjust

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Taking of life right which it it seems like implies some form of like The on the other person is totally unwilling

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Right, but then that's different than the person who's like willingly laying down their life for someone else right

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Right. Yeah, so I mean like that like we shouldn't murder and murder is like the um, you know Unjust or unlawful killing of another human being in that way

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And so there are certain actions that we can undertake that means that we should forfeit our life

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That we've you know, like if we kill another person, but you know Our blood will be spilled right?

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That's the definition of rich retributive justice at that point. You take a life you lose a life So that would be an act of judgment, but that's not an individual thing.

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That's performed like in a vigilante kind of way So meaning like that that job of avenging that life is given to the government

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And it's not something that we just have the authority on our own to do So human life is sacred.

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It's a gift given to God and you know, we need We need a morally sufficient like justifiable reason to take life now you kill someone in self -defense then

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That's different from murder and that murder is intentional as planned but then all you're doing at that point is you're defending yourself and You're using the same level of force that's being used against you and that's someone throwing away their life in that way

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But that's not just some sort of intentional act at that point now in the idea of like assisted suicide

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Essentially what you're doing is you're playing God and you're saying that you have the right to determine that this life is no longer valuable in that way and There's no moral reason give

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I mean, there's no like morally sufficient reason like the scriptures would give us that would allow us to yeah

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Play that kind of calculus even like with your own life, right? Even with the own life.

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Yeah, it's a it's an act of cowardice it's a refusal to accept God's sovereignty at that point, it's

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Basically just a failure of long -suffering, right? So, you know

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God God's the one who gives life life is precious and in there are times when life gets hard and there's times where you know someone's given just an overwhelming sickness or suffering that We wouldn't wish upon anyone, but we don't have the authority just to casually lay aside the life just because we think it's compassionate

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We have we serve God and God sets parameters for these things. Now. That's now is there ever like a

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Is there like a concession made for the person who is? Well, I mean just like incredibly sick

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So like the person who is, you know, very they're elderly And then they get sick with something and they can technically live

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Right, but or or like someone who's basically like a vegetable You know and you like you can pull the plug

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There's a moral distinctions to be made between like letting someone die and killing them. Okay, okay

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Now a lot of what hospice is doing and you know, most people aren't aware of this as they go in They actually are killing people.

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All right, and so they're blurring those distinctions They're blurring the distinctions between you know, letting someone die and taking their life

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And you know, we should be very hesitant to adopt certain Policies and certain procedures that are going to be crossing that line.

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Now, I mean you can artificially hook someone up to technology You know like a breathing apparatus

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To where their brain is dead. They have no brain activity and You have them hooked up to that and so the

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Bible doesn't command us to artificially preserve Life through any means part possible at any expense necessary for as long as it takes forever like meaning like yeah, you know, there's certain technologies that we have access to now where we can keep them, you know

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Hooked up to a breathing machine or whatever else. They don't have any brain activity. They're vegetable

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And so that it is not incumbent upon us to take advantage of those technologies But then if you refuse to do that, all you're doing is letting them

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Go does that make sense? Yeah Like and that's a very different moral act a natural process is taking over.

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Yeah, I mean that's a like their Their body is done, you know, and you're just recognizing what's happening and you're refusing to Continue to resuscitate indefinitely so with no hope that's very different though, then

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You know poisoning them right right or starving them to death. Yeah, you're like that's those are very different at that point.

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You're you're you're not just allowing them to go to their inevitable and you're

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This is different more right and so I guess just as like a final closing thought basically for the doctors who are helping do these things and Thinking they're doing the compassionate thing by helping someone end their own life

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Really that blood is on their hands as well, right? And there's not like a technicality that says well, hey just because I you know,

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I gave them the medicine Right that doesn't absolve me in God's eyes from the wrongful taking of life, right?

15:01

I I mean, it's like if you built some apparatus in your home that You know built the bomb, you know built the chair built the shack or whatever, you know

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Built built the button that you can press to end it all, you know You open the door up and you show them where to sit you show them what to do and then you walk out

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Press the button, you know, and then you say I didn't have anything to do with that that that's not gonna pass. Yeah.

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Yeah, okay This has been another episode of Bible bashed.

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