A Decision That Imperils All Human Life : Assisted suicide: A court ruling that could lead to involuntary euthanasia lowers the value of mortal existence.

All of us who have been speaking up for, and striving to protect, each precious human life are still in shock over the incredible decision by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which held by an 8-3 vote that a state of Washington statute banning assisted suicide violates the due process clause of the 14th Amendment “insofar as [it] prohibits physicians from prescribing life-ending medication for use by terminally ill, competent adults who wish to hasten their own deaths.”

The 1973 U.S. Supreme Court abortion decisions started us as a nation down the “slippery slope” toward endangering all human life at every stage of development, and the angle and rate of descent on that slippery slope have been increasing over the years as various courts continue to dismantle protections for God’s great gift of created human life. In fact, there is no more slope left--we have now hit rock bottom in our care and concern for the value of human life in this country.

While this decision is appalling on many counts, two aspects make the decision most alarming: its reliance on Roe vs. Wade and Doe vs. Bolton, the two 1973 Supreme Court decisions legalizing most abortions, and its granting to others, such as family or friends, the authority to end someone’s life without the individual’s involvement in that decision.

With respect to concerns about linking this decision with earlier court decisions legalizing abortion, the 9th Circuit Court states:

“The legalization of abortion has not undermined our commitment to life generally; nor, as some predicted, has it led to widespread infanticide. Similarly, there is no reason to believe that legalizing assisted suicide will lead to the horrific consequences its opponents suggest.”

Pardon me? Our commitment as a nation to life generally has not been undermined since the infamous 1973 abortion decisions? Even those decisions had some limitations and protections built into them. In the past 23 years, though, the interpretation of the decisions has expanded and abortion has now become the birth control of choice for many of the 1.3 million unborn children exterminated year after year in their mothers’ wombs--the total is now more than 30 million.

Our commitment to life generally has been undermined and it has eroded. We have created the “culture of death” in our country whereby no human life is safe from being destroyed for a whole host of “reasons.” The abortion mentality has had a devastating, negative effect on our people, especially on our young people. The current push among abortionists to legalize late-term abortions is but one more explicit example of this downward erosion. If late-term abortion is not infanticide, then I don’t know what is.

The second aspect of the appellate court decision is even more troubling. This court states without hesitation:

“[A] decision of a duly appointed surrogate decision-maker is for all legal purposes the decision of the patient himself.”

Easy translation: Even nonvoluntary euthanasia may now be a constitutional right. That means that a patient, even while comatose, may be killed through euthanasia even though that person has not been consulted and the person has no role or rights in such a terrible decision.

I believe, in sharp contrast to the 9th Circuit Court, that indeed, those “horrific consequences” will be swift in coming. It is a very short path from “voluntary” euthanasia to involuntary euthanasia. The court seems to believe that we are all safe from inappropriate detrimental actions against us because of its decision. That is foolishness, and the majority know it.

I have written to the Washington state attorney general, Christine Gregoire, urging her to appeal this appalling decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, where I am confident that the state’s interest in caring for human life once again will be established and the appalling conclusions of this decision will be overturned.

Let us continue our focus upon prayer as the finest way to overcome the antilife evil that swirls about us--even from some of our courts.