My Representation
03-09-2004, 12:13
I have read in "The Economist" that Bush has backed plans to make it illegal for a state to allow assisted suicide. I found this quite disturbing. It seems to me like blatant enforcement of one's pseudo-religious views on the population. This does not seem to be like with abortion - for many people with no religion object to abortion - but assisted suicide seems to be an issue of personal choice more than practically any other issue you can think of. Only you have to suffer that pain and no-one else, so you should be able to decide when to end it and a person that helps you end that is doing so out of pity. It is arguably an ethical action and not one that should be punished. I think that a country which prides itself on being free should not be enforcing legislation which has its roots in such [strange] interpretation of scriptures that should not even by official religion.
Moving on, however, I want to talk about this strange view that churches seem to have always had on suicide. Suicide has been seen as immoral. Why? There is not a single place in the Old or New Testaments where suicide is condemned. Some people say that it is implied by other things that are said in there. I think that is a very faulty argument. There seem to be two main interpretations:
1 God decides when we die
2 There is nothing more precious than life and it is wrong to end it
In response to 1, it seems rather hard to employ such fatalism to the future; we can only see fate when we look back. How are we supposed to know when we should die in God's plan? If such a time is set out, then it would also be wrong to prolong life beyond that point. If suicide is wrong on the grounds that God doesn't want us to die then and we are quitting life too early, then it would also be wrong to save someone who appears to be dying as God wanted that person to die and we are making them live longer than God wants. It is thus inconsistent to be against suicide but in favour of saving dying people in hospital. The church has never opposed saving people in hospital, so it shouldn't oppose suicide.
As for 2, I'd like to ask for Biblical quotes in favour of this view. There are an awful lot of quotes in the New Testament that see life as melancholy, full of suffering and futile and also that see death as a form of liberation from this world. It can be argued, from an ascetic point of view, that it would be more moral and more holy to carry on living as a person that does good in the world, spreads the gospel of love or live as a monk, but that does not mean that suicide is immoral per se. For example, we do not think that someone who keeps most of their money is doing something immoral per se, although we do think that it would be more righteous if they gave that money away; in the same way, a person who commits suicide should not be seen as immoral, but it would have been more moral to have carried on living in a more holy way.
I think that the only religious text that explicitly condemns suicide is the Koran. If these Religious Right types want to boost their anti-Muslim credentials, perhaps they should change their view on suicide.
Moving on, however, I want to talk about this strange view that churches seem to have always had on suicide. Suicide has been seen as immoral. Why? There is not a single place in the Old or New Testaments where suicide is condemned. Some people say that it is implied by other things that are said in there. I think that is a very faulty argument. There seem to be two main interpretations:
1 God decides when we die
2 There is nothing more precious than life and it is wrong to end it
In response to 1, it seems rather hard to employ such fatalism to the future; we can only see fate when we look back. How are we supposed to know when we should die in God's plan? If such a time is set out, then it would also be wrong to prolong life beyond that point. If suicide is wrong on the grounds that God doesn't want us to die then and we are quitting life too early, then it would also be wrong to save someone who appears to be dying as God wanted that person to die and we are making them live longer than God wants. It is thus inconsistent to be against suicide but in favour of saving dying people in hospital. The church has never opposed saving people in hospital, so it shouldn't oppose suicide.
As for 2, I'd like to ask for Biblical quotes in favour of this view. There are an awful lot of quotes in the New Testament that see life as melancholy, full of suffering and futile and also that see death as a form of liberation from this world. It can be argued, from an ascetic point of view, that it would be more moral and more holy to carry on living as a person that does good in the world, spreads the gospel of love or live as a monk, but that does not mean that suicide is immoral per se. For example, we do not think that someone who keeps most of their money is doing something immoral per se, although we do think that it would be more righteous if they gave that money away; in the same way, a person who commits suicide should not be seen as immoral, but it would have been more moral to have carried on living in a more holy way.
I think that the only religious text that explicitly condemns suicide is the Koran. If these Religious Right types want to boost their anti-Muslim credentials, perhaps they should change their view on suicide.