Is euthanasia right? | Canadian Atheist

This week, the Ottawa Citizen asks its religions experts, “Is euthanasia right? Would God want us to suffer?”

There is an often repeated cliché that maintains there is no such thing as a stupid question. That’s not true, and the question, “Would God want us to suffer?” tops the list of stupid questions. However, there is no question so stupid that some people won’t try to answer it. Eight religious experts and one skeptic attempt to answer what are really two questions: ” Is euthanasia right?” and “Would God want us to suffer?” The question prompts a corresponding question: who decides what is right or wrong when discussing an adult’s right to choose the year, the day, the hour of his or her own death?

According to Jack Mclean, a Bahá’í scholar, Bahá’u’lláh’s sacred writings determine right and wrong:

moral determinations such as euthanasia are made on the basis of revealed law found in Bahá’u’lláh’s sacred writings. If these determinations do not exist, Bahá’ís have recourse to the authorized interpretations of those same writings by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá (1844-1921), his eldest son and appointed successor, or Shoghi Effendi (1897-1921), ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s appointed successor. To date, no ruling on euthanasia has been found to exist in Bahá’í scripture or in the writings of Bahá’u’lláh’s authorized interpreters.

John Counsell is discipleship pastor at Bethel Pentecostal Church in Ottawa and a media personality: he is host of “Late Night Counsell” on AM580/CFRA Ottawa. He’s new to the panel, but he knows how to use emotive words like compassion and unselfish love as ways to convince people that euthanasia, or what he calls “mercy killing” is wrong. He goes on to instill fear by criticizing Holland’s assisted suicide laws:

Holland has numerous glaring examples of euthanasia legislation being abused to the point where many of their elderly are in fear of their own health care system. You can see how the term “dying with dignity” can become ludicrous and oxymoronic.

Can Counsell provide documentation to support his malicious claims and fear mongering? Disturbingly, Counsell has an ally, Geoff Kerslake, a Catholic priest, who makes similar unsubstantiated and hyperbolic claims:

We know for a fact that in countries that practice euthanasia, people are being euthanized without their express consent in alarmingly high numbers, as the value of human life is degraded.

Who is we, and where is Kerslake’s support for his claim that “people are being euthanized without their express consent in alarmingly high numbers?”

Kevin Smith, a humanists, skeptic and freethinker, is brutally honest about whether God wants us to suffer:

Imagine one of your parents has a terminal illness. . . . Perhaps it’s one of your children, or your spouse. You observe one of them fade into an emaciated shell of who they had been, with no hope of recovery. . . . God help them; except he doesn’t. . . . By all accounts, God not only allowed suffering, but also was instrumental in creating plenty of it. . . .Considering God has been culpable in or insensitive to human suffering throughout history, we should question the rationale for including him in end-of-life decisions.

Obviously, God wants us to suffer. People suffer, and God does nothing to stop or alleviate that suffering. I suspect God laughs at humans, especially at the humans who legislate about life, death and everything in between. He laughs because humans are so gullible ; they allow themselves to be directed by an entity they have never seen and have never heard. For the rational or the suffering, there is no god. There is only one rational way to end unendurable and unending pain and suffering: death, and let the gods be dammed.