Euthanasia - Craig Ewert taking his own life

Another hard hitting documentary shown on BSKYB Real Lives Tuesday 10th Dec 9pm

Craig Ewert suffers from incurable motor neurone disease and his body is completely paralysed. This documentary shows Craig taking a cocktail of drugs and switching off his own ventilation machine. 45 minutes later he was dead.

This will no doubt raise the issue of Euthanasia here in Britain.

If I was to become so seriously ill and be in so much pain what would I do as a Christian? Is it comprehensible to think that I could take my own life or ask someone to do it for me? My view is that life is given to us by God, we are created in God's image. Life, birth and death are processes that God has created so we should respect them. So no one has the authority to take a life even if that person wants to die. Life is a gift from God that we cannot treat as a possession of our own to keep or throw away as we please.

On investigation I found there have been several suicides in the Bible, Judas Iscariot who took his own life after betraying Jesus (Matthew 27:3-5). In the Old Testament King Saul (I Samuel 31:4) and David's counselor, Ahitophel (II Samuel 17:23), both of these required assistance and this could be described as euthanasia.

However there was nothing in the Bible that agrees or disagrees with these deaths.

There is further evidence in the commandments that God gave us as a law to follow, the fifth commandment states "thou shalt not kill" This also relates to abortion, suicide as well as murder as we understand it.

For Christians I think it is quite straight forward, we must take God's views into account, they are paramount. As Christians we accept medicine as part of God's will for us as humans and God works along with nature and human activity and if we use medicine in the image of God it must have no role in terminating life.

What about the pain and suffering why should we have to endure that? As a Christian Sin is far worse than pain. In fact pain can have a spiritually beneficial effect if you treat it as a challenge and spiritually overcome it with the grace of God. Not letting the pain make you bitter and selfish and loving others through your pain despite it. This doesn't mean pain should be sought or that it should not be treated, that would not be commonsense, but it does mean as a Christian we should not run from pain by dying.

Also as a Christian being handicapped is not the terrible problem, the handicapped can also love, love God, love their neighbour just as well as able bodied and are not inferior to others. I also believe that if you become ill or handicapped it is part of your life course and we should accept it, if it cannot be healed.

Whether euthanasia should be illegal is another matter. It is a political matter and there is a case for allowing euthanasia for those who believe in it. There are dangers though, human error, Public officials cannot be trusted not to get confused elderly folk to sign a form permitting euthanasia, unscrupulous families who would concur with them. A real danger that what was voluntary becomes compulsory, as people decide that it is socially responsible for people with certain conditions to die. Banning euthanasia is a defence against vulnerable people, but it also infringes freedom of conscience.