IS IT MURDER IF LIFE SUPPORT IS DISCONNECTED?
Sakkie Parsons
Someone wrote and ask me the following:
"Is it murder to turn off life-support machines?"
I would love to share with you how I would handle this situation in my own life.
For many people, this modern technology is a major problem.
To begin with, I cannot think of a passage in the Word that gives us a clear conclusion on this matter but I believe that we as children of our Lord, with the guidance of His Holy Spirit and the knowledge of what we get from His Word, can still give an answer to this question.
Let me put it in this way:
Our Lord put us as parents there to help our children as babies and later as toddlers to start life right.
Then come a time when they need more specialized education and we send them to school because we know our Lord has put the teachers there to help our children with that kind of education.
Even later, many of us send our children to a college, university, etc., where there are lecturers, professors, etc. to help them even further – because we know we cannot help them with those kinds of studies – but our Lord has provided the lecturers and professors for us.
So we know that as our Lord has provided the teachers, lecturers, professors etc. for us in life, He has also provided our pastors, ministers etc. to help us in our spiritual life.
The same, of course, applies to our doctors.
When a Teacher or lector tells me my child has a problem and that is what we need to do, I listen, pray about it and let our Lord lead me.
If I have a spiritual problem, I go to my pastor/minister and I listen, pray about it and let our Lord lead me.
The same goes for my doctor. I listen to his diagnosis and advice, pray about it and let our Lord guide me.
When my doctor told me in 1997 that I had melanoma cancer and we should start treatment immediately, because if they could not stop it, I had three to six months to live, I immediately agreed.
I have not pondered about how bad I am going to feel and so on.
Likewise, I believe we can act with great peace in our hearts when the doctor come to us and says that our beloved is brain dead and that it would be best to turn off the power.
However, if in doubt, get a second opinion and if the answer is still the same, I would turn off the power with great peace in my heart. Because I believe; at that point my loved one is long already at his/her final destination and I only allow the empty tent dwelling (body) to be demolished now.
2 COR 5:1 For we know that if the tent, which is our earthly home, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
So, in answer to your question:
‘Is it murder to turn off life-sustaining machines?’
I certainly do not believe that it is murder if you, on the advice of your doctor – whom our Lord has send your way to help you – give permission for the power to be switched off.
Finally just this:
You and I, our Lord's children, have this glorious assurance from Him:
If we pray in sincere faith on a matter, (just as I also prayed that I might be able to give the answer to this question), He will give us the wisdom we need to say and do, what we must say and do – if something has to be said or done.
JAM 1:5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.
For me personally, the most important question, (especially in these times we’re living in), regarding those wonderful machines, is:
If they turn off that machine which my beloved is connected, then my beloved have already arrived on the other side of the grave.
Where does my loved-one spend his or her eternity?
If they connect myself to that machine … Do I know where I will arrive after I have left this ‘temporary tent’ (my body) and they turn off the machines?
Can you who read here, now say with conviction:
2 COR 5:1 For we know that if the tent, which is our earthly home, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
You can, of course, if you have truly accepted JESUS as your Saviour and Redeemer .
Because – how wonderful!
We read in His infallible Word:
JHN 1:12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, (to be Him forever in Heaven)
Because you see and it applies to you –
Actually, because He let you read this letter today, it certainly applies to you again as confirmation where you are going to spend eternity.
For those of you who have not yet done so, our Lord says to you today in these extremely dangerous times in which we live:
Make sure you know where you are going to spend eternity and today He remind you again:
JOHN 3:16-18
16 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
Greetings,
Sakkie