Do we really have a “Right To Die”?

The Right to die.  A euphemism.  At best - a claimed right to commit suicide.  At worst - legalized murder.  And where does this "right" come from?

Let's look deeper into this issue.  As one who has tried to commit suicide - and obviously failed - it's something I've examined before.  As one with a mother who was very upset at having been revived (my father convinced a doctor to ignore a do not resuscitate order) - it's something I've examined before.

Where did this "right to die" come from?

Earlier this year, I wrote a piece called Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. You're welcome to go back and read the whole thing, but here's a shorter look at this group of rights from the Declaration of Independence - with an eye to the alleged "right" to die.

Life

Claiming a "right to die" based on a "right to life" seems more than a little odd, right from the start. Claiming a right to life leads me to think that one would do everything possible to cling to that life - not terminate it earlier than would otherwise have been the case.

Yes - some claim this as a right to die "with dignity". I'll get more into the dignity side of it later - so hold your thoughts on that. However - that's not what this law is called. At best, something's misleading here by advertising it as one thing - claiming it means something else - and entirely leaving out the explicit statement that someone's life is ending early. This is really about claiming a right to end a life - not a right to life.

Liberty

Liberty is essentially about gaining freedom from something or someone that has control over you.

OK - I can admit that killing yourself is a way to escape the disease that has control over you. As I have seen first hand, it's also a way to escape the depression that has had control over me. But is it really even an escape? Let's face it - as I have done (more than once) - it's a way to get relief from that thing controlling us - but to what end? If successful, we are dead. We no longer exist on this earth.

Looking at an example from dictionary.com, we see an example of "at liberty" -

free to do or be as specified

If our goal was honestly to be free of something controlling us - whether disease, depression, something else -
then liberty should be something like

free to be healed / free to be happy & upbeat

But what we really have is

free to be dead

That takes is back to the very beginning - all we are is dead. Gone from this earth. We may have won the battle, but we lost the war. That's backwards.

pursuit of happiness

Again - we could claim that freedom from disease or depression would lead to happiness. And it would - if death wasn't a guaranteed outcome. All we have is the pursuit of death.

The source of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"

Of course, the real issue here with these claims of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is this, from the Declaration of Independence

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness

Endowed by their Creator

The Creator, of course, is God. If you believe in God, then what He has to say about these "rights" should be important to you. If you don't believe in God - then I have to ask - do / can you even believe that you have these "rights"?

For those that do believe in God, the issue comes to this prayer from Jesus, shortly before His arrest and Crucifixion -

Jn 17:13 “I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. 14 I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. 15 My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. 17 Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. 19 For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.