Life Library — Euthanasia

Life Ministry   •   The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod

• Amazingly Complex — Health care’s amazing technology also creates impossibly complex situations. Three questions that Christians can and should ask themselves can help guide decisions as life draws to its end.
  
  
• Asking the Right Questions — When Christians face situations where they must make decisions about continued medical therapy for themselves or others, there are questions to discuss with family members, medical professionals, and their pastor. Our confidence lies not in our ability to make perfect decisions but in Jesus Christ, who holds us in His merciful hands.
  
  
• From Healing to Relief of Suffering — The Christian response to medical ethics today is to speak the Word of truth to empty lives that believe lies that say there is no right or wrong and lies that say nothing more than the autonomy of the individual is at stake. We have the one thing needed, and we need to share it.
  
  
• Hope and Guidance — When Christians face situations where they must make decisions about continued medical therapy for themselves or others, there are questions to discuss with family members, medical professionals, and their pastor. Our confidence lies not in our ability to make perfect decisions but in Jesus Christ, who holds us in His merciful hands.
  
  
• I Want to Burden My Loved Ones — We shouldn’t hesitate to empower our loved ones to make medical decisions for us as long as they avoid the futile question “What would he have wanted?” and content themselves with the question “What is best for him now?”
  
  
• Murdered in the Woods by a Robber — The thought of suicide is never to be an option even though a government may permit or even promote it with legalized assisted suicide. The evil one is behind suicide as he was the murderer from the beginning (John 8:44). We stay on guard against the works of the evil one and support those who grieve because of a suicide.
  
  
• That They May Live — Assisted-suicide and euthanasia present the church, society, families, and individuals with one of the most profound and emotionally charged ethical challenges of the modem era. The public controversy over assisted-suicide and euthanasia comes at one of the most challenging and potentially dangerous times in human history.
  
  
• The Christian Response to Assisted Suicide — Many in our world are wandering in a desert of confusion, measuring the quality of health and life against oddly-contrived notions that ignore the value that God gives to all human lives from conception to natural death. Our natural death is the day that He has formed and chosen to end our earthly life.