The Christian Position on Euthanasia

This essay has chosen to study the largest Christian denomination's attitude toward euthanasia, in order to determine the basic Christian position in the current debate on euthanasia. It is interesting to note that, even within one Christian church like this, there are a host of considerations on the euthanasia question.

The rights and values pertaining to the human person occupy an important place among the questions discussed throughout the world today. In this regard, the largest Christian denomination, the Catholic Church, solemnly reaffirmed the lofty dignity of the human person, and in a special way his or her right to life. The Second Vatican Council therefore condemned crimes against life "such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia, or willful suicide" (Pastoral)

The progress of medical science in recent years has brought to the fore new aspects of the question of euthanasia, and these aspects, in the Church's view, call for further elucidation on the ethical level. In modern society, in which even the fundamental values of human life are often called into question, cultural change exercises an influence upon the way of looking at suffering and death; moreover, medicine has increased its capacity to cure and to prolong life in particular circumstances, which sometime give rise to moral problems. Thus people living in this situation experience no little anxiety about the meaning of advanced old age and death. They also begin to wonder whether they have the right to obtain for themselves or their fellowmen an "easy death," which would shorten suffering and which seems to them more in harmony with human dignity.

The considerations set forth here, concern in the first place all those who place their faith and hope in Christ, who, through His life, death and resurrection, has given a new meaning to existence and especially to the death of the Christian, as St. Paul says: "If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord" (Rom. 14:8; cf. Phil. 1:20). As for those who profess other religions, many will agree with us that faith in God the Creator, Provider and Lord of life--if they share this belief--confers a lofty dignity upon every human person and guarantees respect for him or her.

Human life is the basis of all goods, and is the necessary source and condition of every human activity and of all society.