(The following are excerpts taken from ‘Christian Ethics’ by Norman L. Geisler)
Nearly all the arguments pertaining to abortion are equally good arguments with reference to infanticide and euthanasia. If it is justified to kill an unborn human because the fetus is not wanted, might be deformed, or might not be able to function fully as a human being, then by the same logic some infants and most of the elderly may be eliminated for the same reason. Thus, if abortion is morally right, then so is infanticide and euthanasia for the same reasons.
INFANTICIDE
Active infanticide involves a procedure that actually takes the life of the infant. Passive infanticide simply allows an infant to die by withholding needed treatments. In 1982, the Supreme Court in Indiana ruled that parents could permit their Down Syndrome baby to starve to death. It is not an uncommon practice in hospitals to allow deformed or handicapped infants to die without food, water, or treatment. Others get a DNR (do not resuscitate) order. A professor of pediatrics a the University of Wisconsin stated boldly, “It is common in the United States to withhold routine surgery and medical care from infants with Down Syndrome for the explicit purpose of hastening death.”
Some infants are not merely allowed to die; procedures are actually employed to take their life. The most notorious of these is the so-called ‘partial-birth’ abortion. Under this method, the baby is allowed to come out of the womb feet first until a hole can be drilled in its head and its brain sucked out. After many failed attempts to outlaw this form of active euthanasia, the Supreme Court ruled five to four against it (in the Gonzales 2007 case). Hidden from view are instances where the unwanted [newly born] infant is drowned to death or suffocated.
It is argued by many in favor of infanticide that the parents should have the first and initial right to make the choice about ‘imperiled’ children. Imperiled children are those born with an impairment that will cause death if not immediately treated. By contrast, an ‘impaired child’ is one born with an impairment that does not necessarily entail immediate death if left untreated.
Many in favor of euthanizing imperiled children believe that they are human beings, but they are not persons in the full sense of the term. This is because they do not exhibit self-consciousness or other human functions. Moreover, they also believe that these children will never have the ability to exhibit characteristic human activities.
There is a distinction between being a human being and functioning as a human being. The view that imperiled children are nonpersons errs since it believes that actions determine essence instead of essence determining actions. One is a human being that exhibits human actions, not a bundle of actions that, when collected, become a human being.
[If ‘imperiled’ adults would be treated the same way as these euthanizers desire for infants] then many elderly, sick, bedridden, and other individuals would be candidates to be euthanized.
Because the imperiled child is a human person, it would be infanticide to withhold treatment of the child if it is known that medical intervention would fix the problem. For instance, some children are born with a closed esophagus, and through a simple medical procedure, this problem can be fixed. [But, who should pay for this 10,000 dollar procedure? What if no one wants to pay for it? Should the nearest medical facility be ‘forced’ to perform the procedure? Isn’t God ultimately responsible for this situation; what would one have done 200 years ago?]
Some argue that it is morally permissible to euthanize an imperiled child if it does not exhibit a certain quality of life. They insist that it is more merciful to kill a child in this condition than it is to allow them to suffer. A second form of the quality of life argument claims that it is morally permissible to euthanize an imperiled child if that child is going to infringe on the quality of life for the parents, community, government, the medical field, and so forth. This is because it would be more merciful to kill a child in this condition than to allow for the burdens to be placed on someone else.
The quality of life [issue] is defined only vaguely. An objective definition of ‘quality of life’ is needed. Many people determine the quality of life from personal subjective experiences. For instance, what a poor person in a third-world country would consider quality housing will differ from the standards of someone raised in a rich family [in America]. [What happens if you suddenly became very ill and were going to be permanently bed-ridden; your quality of life would be very poor; would you want a law that says the government, or the hospital, or your family, could decide to have you euthanized…regardless of your desires? What about if you were in a coma? Maybe the coma would only last 1 year.]
It is wrong to assume that non-life is better than a life with suffering. [We all ‘suffer’ almost daily in some way or another: headaches, emotional distress, work stress, unhappy with life’s events, etc..] The quality of life doesn’t take precedence over the sanctity of life. Life is a gift from God. He gave it, and only He has the right to take it.
Deut 32:39 See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand.
Job 1:21 And said, Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.
So, allowing unavoidable suffering is better than killing the sufferer. [What level of suffering should be considered worthy of death? How about someone screaming in agony for 2 weeks straight? God is in charge and is keenly aware of this person’s suffering; He can, at any moment, choose to end their life, or remove that which is causing them to suffer. We should leave it in the hands of the Almighty God.]
Much moral good can result from suffering. Rom 5:3 And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; 4 And patience, experience; and experience, hope:
If it is acceptable to kill a child just because they are a burden and will infringe on someone’s quality of life, then one could argue that nearly any child at any time would be a candidate for infanticide, especially when they are teenagers!
The parental right to make the decision [to commit infanticide to their newborn child] can be overridden if the decision is in conflict with a higher fundamental right (Graded Absolutism). It can be argued that the physicians and the legal system have a duty to override the parental decision in such cases. We have a duty to protect those who cannot protect themselves.
Human beings are made in the image of God. So killing them is killing God in effigy. For, (Gen 9:6) Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.
EUTHANASIA
Euthanasia means ‘good death’. There are two kinds of euthanasia: active and passive. The former is taking a life to avoid suffering, and the latter is simply allowing death to occur in order to avoid suffering. Euthanasia can be either voluntary or not voluntary. In the voluntary kind, the patient consents to this death; in the latter, [they] do not. The death can be self-caused (suicide) or caused by another (homicide).
Those subjected to humanly initiated death can be young or old. The former is infanticide, the latter is called euthanasia.
[Here are some] arguments for Active Euthanasia. It is argued that everyone has a right to die with dignity and that this is part of what it means to have a human kind of life. Death is a part of that life, albeit the last part. But a slow, painful, and merciless death is not a dignified death. [Picture someone dying from a rapid form of cancer which has spread to just about every organ in their body; they are expected to die within a week or two; they are writhing in pain; they are only semi-conscious; they are shedding tears. What should be done?]
We shoot horses trapped in burning barns to prevent suffering. Why not be at least as humane with humans. Not allowing euthanasia merely prolongs suffering. Why must we perpetuate human misery?! [But,] killing deformed infants and suffering adults does not avoid human misery; it inflicts the misery of death; [and, if an adult, it could inflict the worst suffering of all: eternal punishment in Hellfire!] Even if euthanasia avoids more suffering, this does not justify it. The end does not justify any means; the end only justifies good means. And killing innocent people is not a good act; it is evil. If any good end (avoiding suffering) justifies the means (killing), then killing abortion and euthanasia proponents could save millions of lives. Yet no euthanasia proponent would allow this.
The patient is not the only one suffering: the family suffers also. Their social sacrifice and psychological suffering can be every bit as great as the physical suffering of the one dying. Thus, it is an act of mercy to the family to ‘pull the plug’. In 1983, the Supreme Court of Indiana agreed with this reasoning and upheld the parents’ right to allow ‘Baby Doe’ to starve to death.
Besides the social and psychological burden, the family also may be carrying a heavy financial load. Severe illness can wipe out a lifetime of savings in a short period. [What would you do if your 2 year old needed brain surgery that had a 10% chance of removing the tumor but had a 70% risk of death with it….and it would cost you $125,000 ? If left untreated, the child would surely die in 1 to 2 months. What would you do if the patient involved here were your 87 year old Grandfather?]
Another fatal assumption behind the pro-euthanasia arguments is that humans are basically animals. Thus, just as we weed out and breed out undesired traits in animals, even so we should eliminate undesired strains in the human race. Hitler applied a similar logic to human beings. The result was one of the largest mass murders in human history. He left an estimated eleven million dead Jews and other ‘unfit’ members in the wake of his evolutionary ethic, which demanded weeding out inferior breeds of humankind.
Active euthanasia means to produce death. Passive euthanasia, on the other hand, means to allow death. The former is morally wrong, but the latter may be morally right, depending on whether it results from withholding natural means of sustaining life or from withdrawing unnatural means of resisting irreversible sickness (e.g., mechanical respirator being used to keep a person alive who fell 40 ft and has been in a coma for 3 months). Natural passive euthanasia is allowing someone to die by deliberately withholding natural means of sustaining life: such as food, water, and air. Unnatural means include mechanical devices such as respirators and artificial organs. However, certain things do not clearly fall into one of these two categories, such as intravenous feeding, oxygen masks, and antibiotics. Although intravenous feeding is not natural in the sense of being produced by nature, neither is it purely artificial, since it is food. Hence, withdrawing someone’s intravenous feeding can be tantamount to starving them to death. The same would apply to artificially supplied oxygen. In these cases the morality of the decision will be conditioned by the availability of the technology. Obviously, if the special equipment is not available, there is no moral obligation to use it. [What happens if the equipment is available at another hospital…or its available in another state…or another country?]
The age and future of the patient also figures into the moral decision-making process. If your 4 year old son is on a ventilator, and has been for 6 months with no signs of improvement, most would still want to keep him on it. He has a long future ahead of him if he were to recover. However, if your 89 year old Great Grandmother was on a ventilator and was dying from Lung Cancer (smoked for 60 years), you might not be so ‘longusuffering’, and might choose to end all ‘unnatural’ means of ‘keeping her alive’. Thus, the possibility of a long, productive future of the person who is being kept alive by artificial means (i.e. respirator) plays into the decision-making for ‘pulling the plug’.]
There are times when the heroic use of unnatural means is a hindrance, not a help, to the process of natural death, which is under God’s sovereign 
hand (Heb 9:27). This is when extraordinary human efforts are really prolonging death rather than prolonging life. When artificial life supports are interfering with the natural process of death rather than enriching the person’s natural life, then their use is wrong. It is resisting the hand of God, which is involved in the very process of death. [Is God’s hand involved in every death? What about suicide or homicide? Is every fatal accident brought about by God? Aren’t we all in a natural process of death? There would need to be a timeline associated with this ‘natural process’ of death…maybe, expectation that they would die within 6 months if without the artificial life support.]
Keeping a comatose person alive by a machine, one who has an incurable disease and is irreversibly dying, is unnecessary. In fact, it could be viewed as unethical because it is opposing the very processes of natural mortality, which God has ordained. The definition of ‘irreversible’ is important to the decision. In practical terms a condition is irreversible when there are no know available medical means to correct the injury or disease process leading to death.
The scientific advances that have made the extension of life possible have also made the process of dying longer; technology is a mixed blessing. Hence, an important moral decision should be made at a very early stage concerning whether it is necessary to put someone on a life-support machine or not. [However,] no one should be allowed to die if we have the means at hand to save that life. [What does ‘save that life’ mean? Does it mean to keep them alive for 1 more week?…1 more year?…for 20 years? This statement contradicts what was said in the previous paragraph.]
The patient who is conscious and rational has veto power over any decision not to extend one’s life by artificial means. If the patient is not conscious, then all other things being equal, one’s living will on the matter should be respected. If the patient is not conscious and has expressed no will on the matter previously, then others responsible for the patient must make the decision. [If there are no family members available, then the ‘state’ makes the decision. What happens if 7 of 8 family members are ok with ‘pulling the plug’, but one is not? What happens if the spouse is ok with pulling the plug but the daughter is not? We will deal with ‘pulling the plug’ in next week’s lecture.]
Humanist Manifesto II specifically recommends abortion, suicide, and euthanasia. This flows naturally from humanists’ rejection of God-given values and acceptance of a situational ethic. once God and God-given values are denied, the Fyodor Dostoyevsky (d. 1881) was right in ‘The Brothers Karamazov’ when he claimed that if God is dead, then ‘everything is lawful’. [We are not far from a society that believes this way…]