To Save Life or To Kill? That is the question!

With modern medicine there are so many more ways to keep a person from dying than there ever was before. This has made bioethics very dicey. How far should a person go in order to save a life? Should extraordinary measures be taken to save a life and what are the consequences of taking those measures? It is easy when nothing can be done; when death is inevitable. Everyone involved can rest assured that they did everything in their power to save them, but couldn’t. But anytime good choices are met with bad results people get bent out of shape.

We really do expect to be rewarded for our good deeds. We expect that if we help someone that they will be thankful, that if we are friendly we will be accepted, that if we pour ourselves out we will be blessed. There is nothing so hurtful as when we are rewarded evil for good, or do justly and be accused of unrighteousness. Try teaching a child why they should not lie when the truth will surly bring them punishment. It makes no sense to do something you don’t want to do that will bring you or someone else pain. So why do we do it? Why do we feel the need to be honest or to confess our wrongs? The answer is simple: because it is right. God has created us with a need to be righteous.

So science has come up with fantastic life-sustaining techniques. But it is not a perfect science and it is not a perfect world. While someone’s heart might be kept beating, their brain cannot be kept thinking. It used to be when someone stopped breathing, you knew they were dead. But now science has us second guessing. We don’t like it when good intentions are met with evil consequences. A life is saved only to have them saying they wish they had died. A heart is kept beating, but instead of gratitude, the eyes only offer a blank stare. And insult is added to injury when faced with the fact that now we are responsible for taking care of a vegetable for the rest of our lives. We wish again and again we had not saved life, that we would have let it go.

But I offer a question: is there a difference in “not saving life” and “killing”? When Jesus was confronted by the Pharisees for healing on the Sabbath, he asked them,“ Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath days, or to do evil? To save life, or to kill? But they held their peace.” (Mar 3:4) Remember in school when you were given analogies: Apple is to fruit as carrot is to vegetable? Here Jesus is using a double analogy. Doing good is to evil as save life is to kill, and back on itself doing good is to save life as evil is to kill. Saving life is the opposite of killing. Not saving life is the same as killing. In caveman language that’s, “killing bad, saving good.” That is why science has sought after extraordinary life saving measures! We all know it deep down inside that we should save life. But are we man enough to face the punishment that might be ours in a world that many times rewards evil for good? Can we do right when it means heartache will follow?

I think that the real dilemma with medicine is not the modern techniques and whether God really meant for us to have them, but with a basic lack of integrity in modern society. If it means things will turn out the way I want, I will chose to do right, but if it will be easier for me to make a wrong choice, I will just have to find a way not to feel guilty. It is time for society to “man up” and do right forgetting the consequences. It is time for Christians to trust God that he will work all things for their good, and be the testimony to the world that Christ offers us abundant life even when life offers us evil.