Let's talk about Euthanasia. Okay? Okay.
I've been on a months-long spree of ranting and raving about borderline controversial issues. Then, my last post kind of exploded because I got real controversial, real fast. I'm about to do it again, though I doubt I'll have the same response as before. And that's really okay with me.
So I have recently read about a few people who have gotten a free pass to end a life. There's the woman who plans to die in a few days (still praying against that one), and then there's this mom who just recently starved her disabled daughter to death.
I would like to know on what planet this is considered okay. Speaking as a Christian, murder is wrong. Speaking as a human being, MURDER IS WRONG. Ask pretty much any sane person and they will tell you that. It's an [almost] undisputed fact. But, recently, we've been redefining our terms. Sayings like "quality of life" have been thrown around to help us justify ending someone's life. Okay guys, assisted suicide is just a nice little euphemism for murder. And we here in America (and Europe...and everywhere) have problems owning up to the murder we're committing by allowing this to go on. Perhaps the reason we have to call it by a nicer name is because deep down, we understand that is fundamentally wrong. Just a thought.
Now, let's address this "quality of life" nonsense. Actually, first off, we like to throw around "right to life" as well, and I think that also needs some addressing. Technically, none of us has the "right" to live. It's a gift. None of us are capable of creating other human beings. Despite what your mother may have jokingly told you growing up about bringing you into this world and taking back you out, that's actually not true. We're here because God put us here. And if you don't believe in God, then I understand why you disagree with me, and I challenge you to do some more searching, because you'll find Him if you really want to. He's pretty hard to miss. But anyway, we don't get to decide if we get to live or not.
Sometimes when I'm feeling especially worn out or emotional, I like to joke around saying "I didn't sign up for this life!" Occasionally, I really feel like I wish I would've known what I was getting into when I started forming in the womb. That was all out of my control, though. Whether I like it all the time or not, I'm here. The same goes for every other person. But for the grace of God, none of us would exist. He doesn't need us. He loves us, and He wants us, but He doesn't need us. He's perfectly fine without us. So it should THRILL us to the core of our very souls that we have been gifted with life.
Back to that whole quality thing: Just like we don't get to decide if we personally have life, we also don't get to decide who else gets life. "Quality of life" is probably the most frustrating and stupid thing that comes out of the euthanasia problem. Who are we to decide how well someone's enjoying his or her life? And since when did enjoying life equal getting to live it? I'm personally prone to depression, and to perfectly vulnerable for five seconds, I've thought about ending my life a few times. I'm sure other people do too. But if I went around telling people I quit because I'm having a bad day (or a bad month, or even a bad couple of months, because sometimes it hangs around for a while), they'd fight me on it. I know they would. They'd beg me to get some kind of help. Why? Because having bad times is part of life and it's not a valid reason to stop living.
We like to assume when someone can't communicate in ways that we understand, or when someone is old, or disabled, that they are suffering. We assume they are always suffering all the time and they hate life and they just want to die (emphasis on "assume). But we don't know. We can ask them. They might not understand, depending on who it is that we're talking to, but we can ask. And they can express it or not express it as best as possible, and we can take it for what it is, but we won't know for certain. We won't know because we're not them. We won't know because we've been gifted with the type of life that doesn't include "handicaps" and they've been gifted with the type that does.
"How could God allow that to happen if He really loves us?" Honestly, I don't know. I'm not God. I can only answer so much about Him. Ask Him. He might not tell you, because He's God and He doesn't have to. But I for one am done making excuses for Him. He doesn't need me to anyways.
Taking a different spin on it, though, and remembering that all of human life is created in God's image, I would like to propose that even those of us who are disabled and handicapped are still created in that same image. I would like to propose that maybe, just maybe, what we see as broken and damaged, God sees as whole. It might be different. It might be a little uncomfortable sometimes. But it might also be one of the most beautiful things ever. Seriously, some of the mentally challenged people I know are the happiest and most joyful people on this planet. You want to tell me they have a low "quality of life"? They will sing, clap, dance and laugh more freely than you and I ever will, even our best days. How does that fit in with your "oh, they're suffering" theory? They're also not inhibited in the same way that we are. Sometimes that's not always the best thing, but sometimes it's really cool to be around. It's genuine and refreshing, and I've made this dare before, but I DARE YOU to go spend a day with people like that and then tell me that they're lives suck.
Any suckiness that's in their lives has probably been put there by people who are too lazy to take good care of them. That's on us. That's on the "normal" people. WE, we who like to believe that our lives are better, and we who like to think that we can decide whether they get to keep living or not, are the ones who have a hard time raising their "quality of life." Chew on that one for a while.
Euthanasia is a selfish cop-out. I understand that some situations almost seem to call for it. I understand that some people have fought very long, very hard battles with diseases and injuries. I understand that some of what I wrote sounds very callous. But I also understand that God is sovereign and has a purpose for everything. I understand that He came down out of the glory and perfection of Heaven in the form of Jesus Christ, hung and died on a cross (you wanna talk about suffering? Go read that part of the story), and then died, so that we, an ungrateful, selfish, overly-entitled people might have an eternal hope beyond the short and temporary suffering of this planet (because, fun fact: He came BACK to life so that we can too). So I'm sorry if I'm a little crass, but it is incredibly frustrating to hear people say that certain human beings don't have the "right to live" or a high enough "quality of life" and that they should be murdered because of it. Because of something out of their control. Because of something we can help with.
We'd rather just not help though. It hurts and inconveniences us too much.
