Euthanasia is Opposite of Christian Values, Jesus Says People Have Worth

This article was originally published at Lifenews.com.

The global mushrooming of the culture of death we are witnessing did not happen overnight. Nations did not suddenly decide that human life was disposable. Rather, over decades, we have become deadened to the value and dignity of human life, one excuse at a time.

A major turning point for the United States began in 1973, the year of Roe v. Wade, a landmark Supreme Court decision that established a constitutional right for a woman to end the life of her unborn child. For over half a century, our country permitted the intentional destruction of human life under the pretense of law. In the U.S. alone, more than 65 million unborn children have been killed in their mothers’ wombs since Roe, and nearly 73 million abortions occur worldwide every year.

Although the Supreme Court overturned Roe in 2022 and returned the issue of abortion to the states, it did not erase the moral brainwashing that took place over the past five decades. The deeper problem was not simply what the law permitted; it was what happened to our nation’s conscience.

When a society repeatedly tells itself that lives may be ended for almost any reason, and up until the moment of birth, it becomes easier to accept the premise that the value of human life is conditional. We are increasingly seeing these same assumptions applied far beyond abortion.

Twenty-one years ago, I witnessed this moral shift in the situation involving the death of my sister, Terri Schiavo. Terri was brain-injured and dependent upon others for her care. She was not brain dead, terminal, or on a ventilator. Our family pleaded to take care of her. Yet Terri’s feeding tube, which provided her food and water, was removed at the request of her estranged husband and by order of a Florida circuit court judge. It took nearly two weeks for her to die an agonizing and unjust death.

However, what happened to Terri was not an isolated legal anomaly; it happens in our healthcare system every day, and also worldwide. Under U.S. law, feeding tubes can now be denied or withdrawn from patients in all 50 states, and it seems to be happening with alarming frequency.

Another Supreme Court decision, Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health (1990), involving a cognitively disabled woman named Nancy Cruzan, established that states may permit the withdrawal of nutrition and hydration via feeding tubes. In practice, this means that the physically disabled, like my sister, the elderly, and others who are medically defenseless can have their basic care withdrawn, resulting in a horrific death by dehydration and starvation.

After Terri’s passing in 2005, I warned against what I called “The Dehydration Death of a Nation.” My concern was not limited to what happened to Terri; it was that her death revealed something about where we were heading: toward a society all too willing to decide that some lives are no longer worth caring for. Sadly, that warning has become reality.

Consider doctor-assisted suicide. Since 1992, 14 states and Washington, D.C., have legalized this macabre practice. Most recently, New York and Illinois passed laws allowing it, and California saw a nearly 150% surge in doctor-assisted suicide deaths over the past five years.

In Canada, where obsession with death has undermined any moral obligation to protect life, more than 100,000 citizens have used lethal drugs to end their lives since legalization in 2016.

Canada has become so nihilistic that it is not only debating whether to include people who are dealing with mental health challenges but is now airing public promotional campaigns encouraging citizens to choose doctor-assisted death.

In the Netherlands, which has permitted doctor-assisted suicide since 2002, the government openly acknowledges that physicians may end the lives of children between the ages of one and twelve. A Dutch review committee recently found that a doctor had acted with “due care” in ending the life of a two-year-old child, unable to speak for himself, after he experienced a brain injury and epileptic seizures.

Whether in the U.S., Canada, or elsewhere, when a society becomes desensitized to killing its most vulnerable members in ways that, if inflicted on an animal, would be considered a federal crime, should we be surprised when a mother accused of murdering her children becomes the focus of public sympathy while the loss of those innocent lives becomes an afterthought?

There is nothing Christian about refusing compassion to someone who is suffering. But there is something profoundly disturbing when the public shows empathy for a mother accused of murder while ignoring her children who were so wickedly killed.

Jesus Christ teaches us that human beings possess value not because they are wanted, healthy, conscious, or productive. Believers understand that we are made in God’s image; our intrinsic value cannot be earned and, therefore, it can never be lost.

This is why Christian teaching on the sanctity of life directly contradicts the irrational logic permeating our culture today. We must ensure that no one is marginalized or abandoned because we are all made in our Lord’s image.

This is the critical mission at the heart of the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network. By advocating for the medically weak and resisting a healthcare system often driven by profit rather than compassion, the Life & Hope Network gives a voice to the voiceless and the hope for recovery.

Twenty-one years ago, I called this cultural decay “The Dehydration Death of a Nation.” Today, I would state it even more plainly: we are no longer merely sliding down a slippery slope; we are standing at the edge of a cliff.

No person, government, doctor, or institution has the authority to declare another human life worthless. The disabled, the elderly, and the unborn are easy targets, unable to fight back. That is why it is up to us to do what Christ Himself commanded: defend and care for those who cannot defend themselves. Because if we don’t, who will?