Medically Assisted Suicide in a Church

Hank Hanegraaff, president of the Christian Research Institute and host of the Bible Answer Man broadcast, reflects on a medically assisted suicide that took place in the sanctuary of a church. Although the medically assisted suicide of Betty Sanguin was reportedly “unanimously approved by the church’s leadership team,” suicide is the murder of oneself. In Christian theology the timing and terms of death are the province of God alone (Deuteronomy 32:39). As such, a doctor is never permitted to usurp the prerogative of deity. Hastening death based on subjective judgments concerning one’s quality of life is a violation of Scripture (cf. Genesis 9:6; Exodus 20:13). While passive euthanasia is morally permissible in that it allows the process of dying to run its natural course, active euthanasia is morally prohibited because it directly involves the taking of human life. Permitting voluntary active euthanasia opens the door to the greater evil of non–voluntary euthanasia. See Emily Standfield, “Manitoba’s First Medically Assisted Death in a Church Was an ‘Intimate’ Ceremony,” Broadview, April 29, 2022, https://broadview.org/medically-assisted-death-church/. For further study, see Hank Hanegraaff, “Is Euthanasia Ever Permissible?” https://www.equip.org/bible_answers/is-euthanasia-ever-permissible/; also J. P. Moreland, “The Euthanasia Debate,” parts 1 & 2, https://www.equip.org/PDF/DE197-1.pdf and https://www.equip.org/PDF/DE197-2.pdf.