Assisted Suicide isn't wrong because it's a slippery slope - though it is that, and that is bad.
Assisted Suicide isn't wrong because it lacks safeguards - though it does, and that is bad (but we shouldn't allow for a second the idea that killing innocent people could ever have "safeguards": a contradiction in terms).
Assisted Suicide isn't wrong because it could bring financial pressure to bear on people to kill themselves - though it would do that, and that is also bad.
Assisted Suicide isn't wrong because it might target certain people groups more than others.
Assisted Suicide isn't wrong because it could be exploited by domestic abusers.
Assisted Suicide is wrong, because it is wrong to kill innocent people, even oneself.
We might even dare to use an old-fashioned biblical word and call it a "sin".
We can and should go further.
The shedding of innocent blood - including one's own - is a very serious sin, since we are made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27; 6:9) and he alone has the authority to give and take life.
Of course all sin is an offence against God and usurps his authority at some level, but when taking human life, we are committing treason of an especially high order, seizing something particularly close to God's heart. No other creature bears his stamp, his image and likeness. An attack on a human being is in one sense the most immediate physical proxy we have to attacking God himself.
God takes it personally (cf. Ezekiel 16:21).
The only really important reason why this Bill is wrong is that it legislates what is in God's eyes immorality, and immorality of the most serious kind. It condones, by making legal provision, the shedding of innocent blood. This is an abomination, invites God's wrath, and brings a curse on the land (Numbers 35:33-34).
At a time when many are rightly excited about the possibility of some "Quiet Revival", what might happen to these tender saplings of spiritual hunger and new life if our nation - not genuinely challenged and warned by the Church in the necessary terms and with the appropriate strength - legislates and starts to practise yet more bloodshed, on top of the 250,000 babies a year we are already killing? And this with the Church's tacit blessing?
Someone might object that the Church has objected, but in truth we have not really.
Our objections to this Bill (click on the video below) have generally gone along the lines of what's acceptable in the culture - and perhaps that explains why no-one is saying the obvious and most important thing, that suicide is a sin, an offence against God.
It is politically very incorrect to say so: it is better to talk about those seeking death for themselves only as victims. They often are also victims in various ways, and there is much tragedy wrapped up in all of these cases. I myself have lost friends to suicide and it's devastating. There is something so particularly gut-wrenching when this is how a life is ended.
But we cannot allow any of this to cloud the central and all-important point.
Assisted Suicide isn't wrong because of all that it could lead to.
It's wrong because it's wrong.
Always.
Full stop.
So why won't we say so?
This article first appeared on the website of Brephos and is printed here with permission.
