Tag Archives: death with dignity

Compassionate Choices

Here’s another “Sunday question of the day” to consider:

There’s a woman named Brittany Maynard who is dying from a brain tumor. The link leads to People magazine’s story about her.

At much personal expense, she and her family moved to Oregon to take advantage of the laws that permit her to die on her own terms instead of riding out the emotionally and financially costly course of dying from her disease… a death which is inevitable.

I think different groups of Christians have different thoughts on the issue of suicide. And in Brittany’s story, this is not a suicide. This is not giving up in light of overwhelming circumstances. This is perhaps choosing the time and place of your eventual surrender.

Stories like this call to mind the media attention around Terri Schiavo several years ago, and I know there were many Christians on social media defending her right to live. In her case, we didn’t really get to hear from Terri herself on the matter, so I think that’s apples compared to oranges here. But I wondered how we draw the line on what’s acceptable or not when it comes to this choice.

The reason I’m bringing this up for discussion is because this debate may be coming to a State legislature near you. So if you haven’t considered it before, now’s a good opportunity to do so.

I’d love to hear your thoughts.