The Giver of Life

The legalising of assisted dying or, more accurately, assisted suicide, is a huge issue at the moment in the United Kingdom. If passed into law, this controversial bill, currently going through parliamentary procedures, could result in a fundamental change in the nature and safety of human interaction in this nation. Requiring a doctor to actively facilitate someone’s death will mean that the assumption of the absolute sanctity of life will be forever lost.

The option of assisted dying will inevitably put pressure on some people nearing the end of life to feel that they must consider this route for the benefit of their family, irrespective of their own feelings. Even among those without a Christian perspective, there are many who are deeply concerned that legalising assisted dying, in circumstances of despair at the end of life, opens a dangerous door to the normalising of all suicide in circumstances of despair throughout life.

It seems appropriate for me to mention at this time that, during many years of praying alongside people who have, at particularly dark moments, felt the need to consider suicide, I can bear witness with many others to the fact that the speaking out of today’s simple verse has frequently had an amazingly powerful effect in disabling the taunts of the enemy.