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Check it out today at Colsoneducators.org slash courses. Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stomestreet. In 2016, Canada legalized medical assistance in dying, or MAID. Less than a decade later, the practice accounts for one in 20 of all deaths in that country.
Just how quickly that deadly practice expanded there underscores that everywhere it has been legalized, the so-called right to die inevitably becomes the duty to die. In fact, assisted suicide is always a slippery slope. Once passed, these laws always expand. In Canada, the law was recently amended to allow anyone with a mental illness like PTSD or depression to To obtain life-ending drugs. In the Netherlands, government surveys recently uncovered thousands of cases in which doctors, quote, intentionally administered lethal injections to patients without a request.
and that included children, the demented, and the mentally ill. It was also in 2016 that Colorado voters approved the End of Life Options Act, which allows physicians to prescribe lethal drugs to adult residents with so-called terminal diagnoses. and a recent pair of lawsuits there demonstrate just how slippery that slope has been too. Last year the governor signed legislation to allow some registered nurses as well as doctors to prescribe the lethal drugs, and also to reduce the waiting period from fifteen days to just seven. And one of the pending lawsuits seeks to expand this law even further.
The euphemistically titled group Compassion and Choices, which, by the way, was formerly known as the Hemlock Society. Is challenging the residency requirement, arguing that it's discriminatory to prevent out-of-state residents from receiving drugs for assisted suicide. And if the lawsuit's successful, Colorado would then become a suicide tourism destination, allowing individuals anywhere in the U.S. to show-called Shop for Death there. The other Colorado lawsuit is seeking to curb the disturbing trend of prescribing lethal doses to patients.
with severe eating disorders. Under the guise of what's called terminal anorexia, some doctors are claiming that due to long-term effects of malnutrition, there are patients there who lack the will to live. And who quote unquote simply cannot continue the fight.
However, according to Denver-based psychiatrist Dr. Patricia Westmoreland, anorexia is primarily a psychiatric condition. It's treatable, not terminal. Even more, according to doctor Westmoreland, and I quote, patients Patients suffering from extreme anorexia are not mentally healthy enough to make a decision with such dire consequences.
Now doctor assisted death is always sold to the public with promises of safeguards, like consent, but those safeguards are always quickly compromised.
So is the meaning of which conditions are considered to be quote-unquote terminal. Predictably, Colorado has followed the same troubling global trends as everywhere else that medicalized death has been legalized. Behind the second lawsuit to challenge Colorado's assisted suicide law is a group of disability rights advocates led by the Institute for Patients' Rights. Their claim is that this law inherently discriminates against people with disabilities. By singling out individuals with disabilities or medical conditions who struggle with depression and other mental health issues, including suicidal ideation.
In other words, rather than offering mental health care and suicide prevention services, like it does for non-disabled people who express a wish to die, Colorado is offering those who have disabilities. the option of killing themselves. In effect, Colorado law is telling people with disabilities that their lives are less valuable and not worth preserving. At the center of this case is the story of Jane Allen, a 29-year-old woman who struggled with anorexia. In the midst of her mental health crisis, a Colorado doctor diagnosed her with terminal anorexia and issued her a lethal prescription.
Thankfully, Jane's father intervened. Court ordered the drugs be removed from her possession. That saved Jane's life. Her health then improved and she was able to live independently before she tragically died of a related heart condition. just a couple years later.
Now Jane's case illustrates the problem with assisted suicide laws like Colorado's. These are laws that prey on the most vulnerable. These are laws that poison family relationships. These are laws that corrupt the medical profession. Rather than embracing the call to heal, doctors are forced to become dispensers of death.
Even worse, they're forced to decide whose life is worth living and whose isn't. This is not care. This is not medicine. Every single life has inherent eternal value. Lawmakers and medical professionals cannot change what the Creator has already decided.
So Christians have to be clear on what's true about human value. The slope of medicalized killing is always slippery. The safeguards never hold. Christians must pray for and push for laws that recognize the central truth that every single human being, from conception to natural death, is made in God's image and is worthy of life. Even more importantly, believers must be discipled in this essential and consequential doctrine.
so that the unjust taking of life will never be accepted as normal. even if it's made legal. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street with Breakpoint. Today's Breakpoint was co-authored with In Spear. If you're a fan of Breakpoint, leave us a review wherever you download your podcast.
And for a version of this commentary that you can download and share with others, go to breakpoint.org.
