Voluntary Euthanasia in the Bible

After last week’s discussion on disability, I think it is now appropriate to fully move on to the topic of whether or not euthanasia is ethical. Following the terrible events of Hurricane Katrina, Dr. Anna Pou, along with a few other medical professionals, made the decision to end the lives of multiple of their patients. I think it is obvious to see that this was not something that was done out of malice. Whether this was true or not, the medical professionals at Memorial Hospital held the belief that these patients were either going to die very soon, or they would be living unfulfilled lives after the hurricane. The physicians and nurses then decided that it was their moral duty to put them out of unnecessary suffering. (Read more about the philosophical definition of suffering here: https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/suffering/v-1#:~:text=Although%20sometimes%20identified%20with%20pain,with%20expectations%20regarding%20the%20future.) They decided to make a cocktail of morphine and versed, a concoction that Dr. Pou was completely aware that it was lethal. This was given to the patients that were the worst off, most of which were LifeCare patients. All of them passed away, and all of this was later confirmed via autopsies and eyewitness reports. It is exceedingly clear that this was euthanasia, and to make matters worse, this was euthanasia without any form of consent. None of the patients were able to verbally agree to receiving the cocktail, and some of them did not have do not resuscitate (DNR) orders either. To further complicate the issue more, some of the eyewitnesses believed that the patients would have made it out of the incident alive and would be able to recover afterwards. While we will dive more into some of the consent and accuracy issues in a later blog post, for this blog post we will make the generalization that all patients were able to consent to euthanasia, and that they would not be able to live a fulfilled life after. This will allow us to look at what the Bible says about euthanasia in a broader and more general sense, and it will be more applicable to those who signed a DNR.

There are multiple cases of suicide/euthansia within the Bible. One example is found within Judges 9, where Abimelek (pictured below), got struck on the head with a stone by a woman. Rather than endure the shame of dying at the hands of a girl, he asked his armor bearer to come up and kill him. This is a clear case of euthanasia, but it is even more morally questionable than what happened at Memorial. In this case, Abimelek was unjustly attacking a city, and it was only a decision of honor that called for euthanasia. What happened at Memorial appears very different to me, because the euthanasia came from a place of compassionate desire to end the suffering the patients were going through. Dr. Pou did not commit a violent act, nor was it made merely to preserve

honor (by stating that it was not a violent act, I mean that there was no desire to cause harm or suffering to the patient). This could lead readers to conclude that euthanasia in this case could be warranted. If it is something that is justifiable just for saving face, how could you decide that it is not justifiable to end suffering? Either way, this example does leave some of the ethics unclear, as the euthanasia did seem justified, but it was also performed on an unjust man. It was also in the Old Testament, which tends to hold some contradictions when compared to the New Testament. In general, the New Testament has fewer examples of suicide or euthanasia. The most applicable passage that we can compare Five Days at Memorial with would be Philippians 1. In this passage, it clarifies that Christians need to live for Christ, and to die is a selfish gain. Of course, to die means that one can be with Christ again, but it also means that they did not do their duty of remaining in the body and living through Him. Looking at euthanasia through this lens, it paints it like it like a cop out. Ultimately, if we are solely looking at scripture, I do not think that euthanasia or suicide is morally justifiable by the Bible, specifically because of Philippians 1. 

As a Christian, this is not something that I would agree with. I think the most important point being that medicine is incredibly advanced today, in a way that the historical context of the Bible would have been unable to predict at that time. According to the National Institute of Health, the lifespan for the average American citizen was 77.5 years in 2005 during the time of the book. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20578408/#:~:text=Results%3A%20In%202005%2C%20the%20overall,from%20life%20expectancy%20in%202004). It was 35 to 40 years old when the New Testament was written. We are at place in medicine where people can be kept alive for an egregious amount of time. Patients could live off of a ventilator for years and years, but is that really living? How is that living in and for Christ? An outstandingly long life is not equal to a quality life, and this was not something that they were thinking about back then. All of the patients at Memorial were elderly. No, they were not at end of life care before Katrina, but their circumstances changed when their conditions worsened. If they lived through the disaster, they would most likely live out the rest of their days in hospice care, not completely aware anymore of the world around them. The decision made by Dr. Pou allowed them to die in comfort, and allowed the medical professionals to allocate their time and resources on patients that would be able to live a fulfilling life after Katrina. 

Finally, I would like to reference to an article written by Badham, with his thesis being that “it would be entirely appropriate for a believing and practicing Christian patient to request the termination of his or her life,” (Badham, 1). He defends this statement with an analysis of scripture, laying out many of the same examples that were explored in this post. He argues that there is no hint of disapproval involving euthanasia within any of the examples in the Old Testament, and there is no overarching comment about the ethics of Judas’s suicide. He believes that there is no Biblical validity behind the idea that euthanasia is unchristian. He does speak on how this could potentially lead to involuntary euthanasia, and this will be further expanded on in a later blog post.