• The Quest For An Unidentified Unity
  
• Doctor-Assisted Suicide
  
• Hook's Points
  
• What I Hear From You
  
• Obeying The Commands
  

Dr. Kevorkian, welcome to Oregon! You have just been voted in the second time. In a referendum here three years ago, assisted suicide was approved by a narrow margin. Then a judge passed a ruling against it. So it was turned back to the voters to decide. On November 4, 1997, with a 60-40% margin, it was approved again.

The reason for such a campaign and the jubilation at its victory is hard for me to understand. Some of the political advertisements expressed an underlying distaste for religious people imposing convictions on our society. I always thought it was a pretty good idea that the morality of religion prevailed in laws regarding murder, theft, slander, rape, and many other detrimental activities. But our society is becoming more outspoken in anti-religious sentiment all along.

I do not recommend suicide but, if you wish to kill yourself, I suppose you have that privilege. Christians generally have considered the taking of one's own life to be a violation of the sanctity of life and a refusal to submit to the will of God, except for those who act out of psychotic compulsion. However, non-believers recognize no supreme will to which to yield.

Why do proponents of suicide want this law allowing a doctor's help? There are numerous ways of exiting this world. Why not save up in store some deadly dose in readiness for the time one wishes to die? I think this question points to the core of the matter.

Legalizing suicide appears to make it permissible, removing it from the area of sinful conduct. Any stigma for the action is considered to be nullified by legalizing it and the involving of a willing doctor. However, if it is against the will of God, laws made by the unanimous vote of man cannot change that. Is it not better to leave it in the hands of God while we pray that his will be done? This is an entirely different matter than taking action to sustain life or refusing artificial sustenance by a ventilator.

Well-meaning people picket in protest of the execution of depraved multiple killers. No doubt, Timothy McVeigh will have many crying out against his execution. But do these people picket and protest the killing of millions of unborn babies?

If a person mistreats or kills his animal, whether it be a dog, horse, or even an encroaching wolf, he gets into big trouble. If his wife chooses to kill the human life in her womb, her "right to choose" is protected both by law and sympathetic supporters. Now, if a doctor kills the man's aged mother, neither the son nor the doctor are held accountable. Have I just lost my mind, or is there some convoluted logic devised to serve the will of people?

It has already been announced that the media will not publicize any of the assisted suicides, but the total will be announced at the end of the year! That will preclude protests! But will the media no longer publicize executions so as to prevent protests? You know the answer to that.

All the firemen and police will try to keep a person wanting to die from jumping from a bridge or building, but the doctors will give a shove to others wishing to "jump"!

An inconsistency is demonstrated in another manner by many sincere believers. They cry out against the practice of abortion, claiming that human life begins with conception months before the child is brought forth in birth. But when speaking of the beginning of spiritual life, they strongly deny that spiritual life begins at conception. Life comes only after the birth is completed, according to their contention. Peter's words should set us straight on this point: "For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God" (1 Peter 1:23). After the spiritual insemination by God's word and a period of development, that life enters its full stage in spiritual birth of the water and the Spirit.

Surely, the mercy of God allows for our inconsistencies due to ignorance, but when we know better and still choose our own devised will, there is cause for serious concern.

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