When Doctors Suggest Death
“When Doctors Suggest Death: The Ethical Cliff We Just Stepped Over”
Amendments to Victoria’s Voluntary Assisted Dying legislation
passed in Parliament this week. But I want to argue here that the diagnosis you’ve
received of a terminal illness masks the gracious mercy of a loving God. He’s
letting you know that your appointment with Him is coming sooner than you
thought.
So, let’s play out the reality we are now in. Picture this
scene. The setting is imaginary, the characters are not real, but the moral
danger they expose is now woven into Victorian law.
“In the days after new laws swept through Havenford like a
velvet-lined storm, Elias Grey lay in his bed while the town buzzed with talk
of compassion about choice and dignity. Yet the unseen world did not shift for
Parliament, and the gravity of death paid no heed to public praise. Doctor
Lucent returned with the confidence of a man newly authorised to speak what had
once been forbidden. “Elias,” he said, opening his case with a soft click, “you
need not suffer anymore. The law now blesses the path out. One dose. One
moment. And all this ends.”
He said it as if he were offering a warm blanket, though the
comfort was as fleeting as grass in the evening heat. What he held was the
hinge of a door that opens not into sleep but into a reckoning every soul must
face.
When the doctor left, Reverend Calder entered like a man
fighting through rising waters. His voice trembled, not with fear of man but
with the weight of eternity resting on the frail shoulders before him. “Elias,”
he said, “hear me with everything you have left. This is not merely a choice
about pain. This is the meeting place of a moment and forever. The State may
smooth the path to the grave, but it cannot shield you from your Maker who
stands on the other side. Parliament can sign papers, but it cannot write your
name in the Book of Life.”
Elias stared at him, breath thin as a thread.
“The Quietus Draft,” Calder continued, “is offered as mercy. But mercy without the Saviour is no mercy at all. They promise you relief, yet they hide from you the fire where you’ll wake fully aware. They offer you escape, but not from judgment. They open a legal door, but that door may open straight into the place where no plea is heard. Did your doctor discuss this with you?”
He leaned closer, gripping Elias’ trembling hand.
“My friend, hell is not a figure of speech. It is a place of remembrance and regret, a place where the presence of God is felt only in His justice. There is no mercy there. The State has made it easier for a man to die, but not safer for a soul to enter eternity unready.”
Elias wept, his tears falling like drops that testify.
“Repent while breath remains and today is still called today,” Calder urged. “Take Christ’s out-stretched hand. Let no law lure you into everlasting loss. Better a few more nights of agony than a single moment of death unprepared.”
And the old man, shaking, whispered the only words that could pull him back from the precipice of Parliament’s new mercy:
“Christ... save me or I die.””
Give eternity consideration:
Victoria’s new VAD amendments are being celebrated as compassionate progress, but behind the language of “choice” and “dignity” lies a reality far starker than the Parliament cares to admit. By allowing doctors to initiate the conversation about ending a patient’s life, the State has crossed a threshold from responding to suffering into proposing death as if it were treatment. For the vulnerable, the isolated, the fearful and the weary, that shift is not liberating, it is perilous.
Politicians can frame this as empowerment, but no law can erase the unavoidable truth that every human being must give account to their Maker. To encourage a person toward death when their soul is unprepared is not mercy. It is a fast-tracked descent into a deeper misery than any physical pain can inflict. An unprepared death is one met without repentance and without the righteousness only Christ can provide. No legislative reform can protect a person from the consequences of crossing that final threshold without Him.
The State may offer temporal relief, but it cannot cool the flames of hell or soften the judgment that follows a life spent avoiding God. To present death as a therapeutic option is to place momentary discomfort on one side of the scale and eternal loss on the other - and pretend they weigh the same.
Victoria’s government can streamline the path to the grave, but it cannot make that path safe. Christians must say what Parliament will not: laws may soothe the conscience of a nation, but they cannot save a soul. The State offers ease, but Christ alone offers rest.