The State of Oregon has agreed to expand its law surrounding doctor-assisted suicide to no longer be limited explicitly to residents of the State.
Oregan, one of the few states that allow euthanasia, initially enacted the “Death with Dignity” law in the 1990s and agreed to the new changes on Monday as a settlement to a lawsuit claiming the resident requirement was “unconstitutional.”
The suit was brought last October by an assisted suicide lobby group, Compassion and Choices, and Dr. Nicholas Gideones, a family doctor who provides “life-ending care.”
Although not currently amended by lawmakers, the Oregon Health Authority and the Oregon Medical Board have agreed to cease enforcing the State’s residency requirement for the lethal medication and are asking the Legislature to make the change.
The Assisted Suicide Lobby has now voiced its intention to use the settlement to pressure eight other states with lenient euthanasia laws to obliterate their state residency provisions.
This development in Oregon greatly concerned pro-life organizations, which view the decision as a back door means of essentially legalizing assisted suicide for all Americans.
“This decision has changed assisted suicide from a state to a national issue since all Americans will be able to die by assisted suicide in Oregon,” Alex Schadenberg, the executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, warned. “This decision also highlights our concerns with the use of telehealth. The assisted suicide lobby wants to approve out of state assisted suicide requests via telehealth and to send the lethal drugs by mail to the out of state requestor.”
“This is an historic decision because it extends assisted suicide nationally, including the many states that have strengthened their laws prohibiting assisted suicide,” he maintained. “These laws give physicians, and in some states nurses, the right to be directly involving with causing the death of another person. This is not an issue of self-killing, which is always a tragedy, but rather these laws enable healthcare workers to have the right to decide who should live and who should die and to prescribe lethal drugs with the intention of causing death.”
Christians should also recognize the tragedy of the court decision, which provides further evidence of a loss of morality and natural affection in our society.
Ken Ham, Founder and CEO of Answers In Genesis, in a recent article discussing euthanasia, wrote:
Where does this view that individuals should be allowed to end their own lives if they have a terminal diagnosis come from? (Keep in mind, as well, that euthanasia never stops with “just” the terminally ill. In other nations, individuals—including children—with disabilities or depression are being euthanized.)
Well, in a very secularized culture that is swamped in evolutionary thought with an atheistic, relativistic worldview (based on naturalism), human life has no more value than an animal’s. But, we know in a biblical worldview that man is very different to the animals, as man is made in the image of God. And God’s Son became a man (the God-man) to die and rise from the dead to pay the penalty for our sin and offer eternal life. It’s the human race (yes, one race) that can receive the free gift of salvation—that’s how valuable human life is. And that value isn’t dependent on health, level of development, what someone can contribute to society, or anything else!
1 John 5:11-12 KJV – “And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.”
“We can help terminally ill people understand what faces them on the other side of their tombstone,” Joni Eareckson Tada underscored in an article for Decision Magazine. “Jesus is the only One who conquered the grave and opened the path to life eternal. How awful if people choose three grams of phenobarbital in their veins, only to face a Christ-less eternity!”
IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO KNOW MORE ABOUT SALVATION THROUGH JESUS CHRIST — CLICK HERE
