The uncertainty and anxiety surrounding COVID-19 lockdowns has brought renewed attention to another crisis in the United States—an alarming uptick in death by suicide. Between 1999 and 2018, the national suicide rate increased by 30%, and last year it was found that 24% of Minnesota’s 11th graders had seriously considered suicide at some point. Recent months have escalated this tragic trend, with a June survey from the Center for Disease Control finding that 11% of respondents had seriously considered taking their own lives in the past 30 days.
Sadly, as our nation faces this sobering trend, the attempt to fight suicide in some is being undermined by a movement that is enabling and encouraging others to end their own lives. Physician-assisted suicide is currently legal in nine U.S. states, two of which legalized the practice in 2019. Last year Minnesota legislators held an informational hearing on a bill that would have legalized assisted suicide in our state. Despite the claims of assisted suicide proponents, assisted suicide is not compassionate. It denies real help and care to people who desperately need it, offering them the means to end their lives, rather than providing a helping hand as they walk through suffering.
Devaluing life in this way leaves hurting people vulnerable to the lie that their lives are less valuable and runs contrary to efforts to fight the suicide epidemic that is ravaging the U.S. Unsurprisingly, overall suicide rates have been found to increase when assisted suicide is legalized. Furthermore, when assisted suicide is legalized, the so-called “right” to die often becomes a duty to die, with 64% of patients who seek to end their own lives citing fears of becoming a “burden” to their family and friends as one of their reasons for requesting assisted suicide, and insurance companies denying coverage for expensive treatment options but offering to cover assisted suicide. Earlier this year, this mindset led a bioethicist to assert that “legalizing assisted dying would avoid [a] waste of resources.” Elderly populations are especially vulnerable to assisted suicide and already have the highest suicide rates of any age group in many parts of the world.
Not only does assisted suicide create a culture of death, but once it is legalized safeguards are often rapidly removed, expanding from suicide for people who are terminally ill, to suicide for people with chronic illness, disabilities, and even people struggling with mental illness. Those who argue that this slope is not slippery would do well to look at other nations that have legalized assisted suicide and euthanasia. Take, for example, the fact that the Belgian government recently approved assisted suicide for a woman with autism who is struggling with depression and believes she will never live a fulfilled life. Her explanation for why she believes this step is necessary is heart-rending—it is clear that she needs someone to come alongside her, to remind her that her life has value. Depression can sometimes be a lifelong struggle - but it does not mean a life without hope or value. Instead of affirming that “where there’s life, there’s hope,” Belgian doctors have thrown in the towel, offering a suicide pill instead of continued treatment.
Assisted suicide seeks to eliminate people who are experiencing suffering, rather than seeking to alleviate the suffering that they are experiencing, an approach that completely flies in the face of the value of human life. How can we expect to communicate to people that their lives are valuable and meaningful if we also promote a movement that says that some people’s lives are not worth living?
Contrary to the media coverage of high-profile suicides such as Brittaney Maynard and books and films that romanticize the idea of suicide, death is not glamorous or romantic. In a fallen world, death is a tragedy that we live with, but it should be recognized as a tragedy, not something to be celebrated, idealized, or presented as an answer to suffering.
A society cannot successfully engage in “suicide prevention” for some while encouraging it for others. The assisted suicide movement preys on fears of becoming a burden, or of pain or loss of ability, and convinces people that death is the answer in the face of uncertainty or suffering. We must counter these lies and offer something better. People need to be reminded of the value of life and that their worth does not depend on their abilities, their age, their past experiences, or someone else’s assessment of their quality of life. Rather, our worth comes from the fact that we are known and valued by our Creator God and are made in his image.
