Do you Have the Right to Die?

Today it was reported that the Pope issued his thoughts on the assisted suicide of Brittany Maynard, the woman who ended her life with assistance of a doctor after suffering through cancer. The Pope said that it was a true sin against God and gave a false sense of compassion to those who were involved.**

The question of suicide is one that hits home for me. I have known several folks who have taken their own life. Usually there is someone nearby to claim that that person's soul went straight to Hell as a result. That statement has ZERO Biblical basis. It is simply a doctrine that has been passed down from one person to another without ANY of those people bothering to back it up with scripture. It is often called "the unforgivable sin" by this bunch. The truth is that the ONLY unforgivable sin is the one of unbelief. That is the ONLY one that the blood of Jesus Christ won't cover and that is only because we prevented it from doing so.

When I think about Brittany and what she has undoubtedly gone through, it is horrible for me. I watched my good friend Madge Bird suffer through it and then preached her funeral trying to comfort others while I myself was grieving. Cancer is horrible.

But if assisted suicide WASN'T OK, what WAS OK?

Should she have kept fighting through chemotherapy and stayed sick and utterly miserable through every waking moment of her life?

OR

Could she have stayed OFF of the medication and gradually let her body shut down...or would you consider THAT to be suicide as well? If this option is OK, what is the primary difference between this one and the path Brittany chose?

I think of the young Iraqi female soldier who fought to the very last moment against ISIS a few months back but saved her very last bullet for herself rather than be taken as a sex slave to be raped, tortured and ultimately murdered by those thugs. Was her sparing herself from that pain and humiliation somehow LESS sinful than what Brittany chose to do?

Do you see how complicated this debate is?

I think some of us have jumped on the "condemn Brittany" bandwagon without giving it a whole heck of a lot of thought.

No, I don't think that I personally could make the choice she made....to move off to another state and have a doctor kill me. I would probably want to spent every last second, painful or not, with my wife and family...but I'm just not so sure that my preference makes Brittany's more wrong than mine.

Were you in the Iraqi soldier's place, what would you have done?

Please consider both situations before you make a judgment call.


http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/11/15/sin-against-god-pope-gives-his-thoughts-on-right-to-die-debate/**