Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia

Lifelines #5: Introduction to Physician-assisted Suicide and Euthanasia

Monday, May 5, 2025

Dear Readers,

[In order to accurately present both sides of this highly contested issue, I have included links to websites I disagree with. Please read all links using biblically-informed discretion.]

As I began to research this topic, I quickly became overwhelmed by the controversy surrounding it. I have discovered that, similar to abortion, the proponents of physician-assisted suicide use euphemisms to make the practice palatable, even appealing. Deeming it healthcare and a right based on patient autonomy, advocates strive to present it as compassionate care. A simple search brings up numerous websites which, upon perusing, I found to be biased either for or against the practice. These websites often seek to present both sides, but their bias is readily apparent in the way the arguments are explained.

I found it rather telling that when I searched "is physician-assisted suicide legal?" on Microsoft Bing, the top entry on the search engine was: 

You're not alone

Help is available

If you are experiencing difficult thoughts call 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline

If someone is considering suicide, he should rightly be offered help to address the reasons he feels that is his only option. Every effort should be made to give him hope. Unfortunately, not everyone has that mentality. Quality of life has become the god of our day. Consequently, this is often the prevailing worldview through which people view the issue.

According to Britannica.com: Changing terminology

Because doctors are the ones who prescribe the drugs used in an assisted suicide, the American Medical Association prefers the term “physician-assisted suicide.” However, there is growing opposition to the word suicide in this context, which carries a strong cultural stigma. Some academic researchers and physicians point out that those seeking to end their lives in such cases are not suicidal. Instead, they want to control the conditions and timing of their own deaths, which are often imminent because of disease or other fatal conditions. Alternative terms proposed include “physician-assisted end of life,” “medical assistance in dying,” exercising the “right to die,” and “dignity in death.” These terms are viewed by many as depicting more accurately a planned process that involves patients and their medical personnel, families, and often friends.

Assisted suicide | Definition, Euthanasia, Terminology, Arguments, Laws, & Facts | Britannica Accessed 30 Apr. 2025 (Can you spot the bias in this explanation?)

What is physician-assisted suicide, and how does it differ from euthanasia, which is often linked with it?

Merriam-Webster.com defines physician-assisted suicide as "suicide by a patient facilitated by means (such as a drug prescription) or by information (such as an indication of a lethal dosage) provided by a physician aware of the patient's intent." PHYSICIAN-ASSISTED SUICIDE Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster Accessed 29 Apr. 2025.

Euthanasia is defined as "the act or practice of killing or permitting the death of hopelessly sick or injured individuals (such as persons or domestic animals) in a relatively painless way for reasons of mercy." EUTHANASIA Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster Accessed 20 Apr. 2025

This article on WebMD.com presents the issue with a positive bias toward physician-assisted suicide, which it refers to as physician-assisted death.

Physician-Assisted Death: Is It Legal, and Is It Ethical?

This link shows the state laws as of April 29, 2025. The site is designed to encourage activists to promote "death with dignity."

Death with Dignity U.S. Legislative Status State Map

In this article, the authors examine the evidence that a "slippery slope" does indeed exist, which ever broadens eligibility criteria in jurisdictions where physician-assisted suicide has been legalized.

Beyond Terminal Illness: The Widening Scope of Physician-Assisted Suicide in the US

For an interactive map with a euthanasia and assisted suicide global timeline, go to this link:

Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide Global Timeline - Life Issues Institute

Speaking of physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia, Mark S. Konrad, et al state: 

The more widely these acts are performed, the easier it becomes to mischaracterize them as forms of "medical care." This is epitomized in the obfuscating euphemism medical aid in dying. As the American College of Physicians has stated, "Terms for physician-assisted suicide, such as aid in dying, medical aid in dying, physician-assisted death, and hastened death, lump categories of action together, obscuring the ethics of what is at stake and making meaningful debate difficult." In truth, assisted suicide does not aid the dying process—it terminates [the process of] dying by terminating the patient.

By the same token, the more PAS/E are viewed as medical care, the easier it becomes to broaden the eligibility criteria to encompass almost anyone who feels they are "suffering." Then the slide down the slope can accelerate, from terminal conditions to chronic conditions (such as mental illness), as is happening in our culturally and geographically adjacent neighbor, Canada. That opens the path for the next drift in the evolving ethos—transforming one’s opportunity to seek these lethal procedures into the virtue of relieving loved ones from the burden of their condition. 

Beyond Terminal Illness: The Widening Scope of Physician-Assisted Suicide in the US Accessed 3 May 2025

Doesn't true death with dignity accompany those who look to the One whose image they bear to determine their days?

Your fellow disciple of Jesus,

Juanita

"[I]n your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them." Psalm 139:16b (ESV)

Disclaimer: I don't necessarily endorse other links shared on the sites I link.