The relentless march toward individual autonomy

Each week, The World and Everything in It features a “Culture Friday” segment, in which Executive Producer Nick Eicher discusses the latest cultural news with John Stonestreet, president of the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview. Here is a summary of this week’s conversation.

Lawmakers in two states are considering bills that would make it easier to put to death elderly patients or those suffering from a range of serious illnesses.

In Oregon, pro-lifers are fighting a bill in their state’s Senate that could allow the killing by starvation or dehydration of certain patients with dementia or mental illness.

In New Mexico, an assisted-suicide bill would make it legal for nurse practitioners and physician’s assistants to administer deadly drugs—not just physicians.

Another provision of the bill expands the definition of “terminal illness” that would qualify for assisted suicide: “a disease or condition that is incurable and irreversible and that, in accordance with reasonable medical judgment, will result in death within a reasonably foreseeable period of time.” The key—undefined—phrase is “reasonably foreseeable period of time.”

The bill also would require authorities to record the cause of death as a result of the “terminal illness,” not euthanasia.

And the New Mexico bill has no waiting period, creating a system of death on demand.

Only five states currently allow physician-assisted suicide, but the movement seems to be gaining ground.

John Stonestreet admits pro-lifers are behind when it comes to the issue of euthanasia.

“There’s just this libertarian impulse that no one has the right to say how I should live and therefore no one has the right to say how I die,” he said.

Pro-life arguments against abortion have been easier to make, in some respect, because they deal with two persons who have value—the mother and her unborn baby. But arguing against the autonomy of the individual, in a culture addicted to autonomy, is an uphill battle, Stonestreet said.

And individual autonomy is starting to challenge religious liberty protections for medical professionals. We’ve seen that play out in issues involving distribution of contraception, abortion-inducing drugs, or requiring physicians to participate in transgender surgeries.

“Suddenly the word healing has changed,” Stonestreet said. “It’s no longer restoring someone to health, it’s now restoring someone to their full autonomy. It’s assisting them in becoming, or being, or pretending to be whoever they want to be.”

When individual autonomy becomes the definition of wholeness and health, it creates conflict between patients choosing to end their lives and doctors not wanting to participate. In Canada, for example, medical associations are suggesting that doctors who can’t participate in assisted suicide shouldn’t be allowed to practice medicine.

“That’s a striking thing, to move in a profession from ‘do no harm’ to enable everyone’s autonomy, no matter what it looks like,” Stonestreet said.

Listen to “Culture Friday” on the Feb. 17 edition of The World and Everything in It.