The reason so many Christians are deeply troubled by the proposal to introduce legalised euthanasia by lethal injection is apart from an immediate and obvious violation of the Sixth Commandment preventing the taking of another person's life, is the idea that if a person loses bodily functions, they become undignified. Each of my children were born into the world unable to tend to or care for themselves. They had not yet learned to how to control their bodily functions. Never did I consider them "undignified" as a result. And I'm pretty sure they didn't as well.
The notion of "intolerable pain" is now addressed by the wonderful God-given advances in Palliative Care. So this argument for it is dismissed.
The idea promoted that euthanasia should be legalised to put people out of their misery by lethal injection is extremely demeaning to the inherent dignity and value of all people, regardless of their age or physical condition. The idea that simply because someone suffering a terminal illness - that since it is inevitable that they will die - we should allow them to receive a lethal injection to get it over with fails to understand how such conditions are now treated. It also overlooks the medical law of "Double Affect".
And it is bewildering to say the least that proponents of this Bill claim that the only reason Christians object to this Bill is because "they lack compassion", or "their own fear of death" forces them to oppose this. There are thousands of Christians who are working with the suffering and ill precisely because they are compassionate and there are thousands more again who far from having a fear of death have deep reverence for life and the One who gave it and commanded that no-one else take it.
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