As we’ve seen, mainstream culture tends toward two fundamental lies about human life: that it has no objective value, and that it is autonomous. Both of these propositions have implications far beyond the womb. If a human being manages to escape what has become the death trap of the female uterus, she will live still for a while longer in a state of vulnerability and dependence. And even when she matures past it, she will eventually return to it. But in the progressive mind, a life that relies on another life—because of age or illness or whatever reason—is subhuman, a beast, a sponge. A person who can’t walk around and pay bills and post selfies to Instagram and participate in the consumer economy is less than a person. He is not functional or useful in any material sense, and worse, he is a burden. He costs money. He costs time, which is why, in a society that doesn’t recognize the basic dignity of human life, it appears quite logical to start ushering this onerous parasite to the exit.

The Culture of Death is born from this mindset, and it explains not only abortion but also the modern celebration of suicide—or “euthanasia,” as it’s referred to in polite company.

The term euthanasia comes from the Greek eu, meaning “well” or “good,” and thanatos, meaning “death.” By even using this word, we have already redefined suicide as “good death.” The death cult of liberalism looks at death as “good” when it can be considered beneficial. Abortion, you might say, is a form of euthanasia—a good death—because it “benefits” the mother by allowing her to escape responsibility, and it “benefits” society by relieving it of another burdensome unwanted child. Of course, the “good death” of abortion would seem to be not as beneficial for the child being slaughtered, but the death cultists will still insist that, somehow, it’s better even for her if she is not bothered with the annoyance of having to exist. These are decisions made without the child’s consent by people who so relish the idea of their own existence, and guard it so jealously, that they’d rather kill than be forced to share it.

Euthanasia is enjoying surging popularity in the United States and Europe because it can be more convincingly presented as beneficial to the victim. In Belgium, where suicide appears to be something of a national pastime, the procedure is open to everyone, including children. Horrifically, they also make it available to “patients” who are not terminally ill. All you need to do is claim chronic depression, anxiety, or a mild toothache to earn yourself a prescribed lethal injection. Strange that a country with only eleven million people is so intent on whittling the population down even further.

In 2016 it was revealed that a young woman in the Netherlands was euthanized because she suffered from emotional trauma as the result of sexual abuse. The law in that country allows “mercy killing” for anyone who experiences “unbearable suffering,” even if the suffering is emotional or psychological.

Not long before that case became public, The Economist released a documentary about a woman in Belgium who elected to be given a lethal injection as a way to treat her chronic depression. Fortunately, she decided at the last minute not to go through with it. But it is of course deeply disturbing that such a “procedure” was ever made available to her in the first place.

All of this is deemed acceptable by Western society because, surely, if the victim chooses to be a victim, she is empowered. As we covered in the previous chapter, our culture proposes that choice itself—whatever the choice, and for whatever reason the choice is made—empowers. This is why liberals call themselves “pro-choice” and consider that abstract and hollow statement meaningful, as if all choices are good simply because they were made—no matter if the choice involves the destruction of life, even your own.

This is a notion that those not indoctrinated in the death cult find impossible to comprehend. But in the mind of the death cultist, it is taken for granted that the greatest expression of self-determination is self-annihilation. For this reason, euthanasia—and, really, all forms of suicide, whether “physician assisted” or otherwise—is cherished and celebrated in our society. “Cherished and celebrated” may seem a bit extreme, but consider the sick, bizarre sort of martyr status that’s often granted to famous people who take their own lives. Robin Williams and Kurt Cobain were beloved in life, but their suicides turned them immediately into saints.

To make matters worse, there are few voices willing or able to dispute the case for suicide-by-doctor. The autonomous, individualistic mindset is so ingrained in us that even those who oppose the death cult find it difficult to explain why a person should be deprived of the right to die. Conservatives, as much as liberals, tend to build their cases from the basic premise that my rights are mine. But if I am in fact the source of my own rights, then why shouldn’t I kill myself (or do whatever else I want, for that matter)? We cannot debunk the liberal argument while accepting the liberal presuppositions that lead to that argument. We can try, but we will fail.

With this dearth of compelling anti-suicide arguments in mind, I’d like to outline the five primary points against euthanasia.

1. You do not have a “right to die.”

We’re told euthanasia is a great good because it allows a person the ability to exercise his right to die, but that phrase is utter nonsense. You can’t say that death is your “right” any more than you can say it is the right of the stone that it fall to the ground after being tossed in the air. These are laws of science, unavoidable and inevitable. Death isn’t something exercised, like free speech or free assembly; it’s something that simply happens to us whether we like it or not.

Rights, remember, are inalienable and endowed by the Creator. As mentioned previously, for a thing to be “inalienable” it must be something that cannot be taken away or given away. It is a condition of human existence. It clearly makes no sense to say that nonexistence is a condition of existence.

When we say we have a right to something, we make a claim on it. A moral claim. We say, “By my very nature, this is mine.” Yet death is not something we can take hold of and own. We cannot lay claim to death or possess it like something you can purchase at the store or have prescribed to you at the doctor’s office. Death will one day claim us, not the other way around. No doubt it is scarier to think of death in these terms—as something wild, unpredictable, and untamable. Ironically, I think it’s this fear of death that leads us to believe we can own it.

When I play the game hearts, I usually like to have the queen of spades in my hand to start the round. Even though it’s a dangerous card, I’d much prefer to have it in my possession so that I can decide when and how it enters the game. I don’t like the idea of it lurking around out there, invisible and hidden from me. It seems we treat death in a similar way. We’d rather possess it—have it in our hands to start with—than wait around for it to leap out and surprise us. But death is not a card in a game. It can’t be possessed, and we shouldn’t try. The only thing we can do with life is live it, and that’s all we’re meant to do until the matter is taken out of our hands.

We are given life, we take part in life, we participate in life, but we do not own it. We can’t take possession of our lives like a two-year-old grabbing a toy from his friend and shouting “Mine!” Our lives are bigger than that, thank God. Your life is not some incidental occurrence, or an accidental mutation, or a meaningless effect in a long string of meaningless causes.

Ultimately, it’s impossible to make this argument against euthanasia (although you could still make several others, which we’ll cover next) without bringing God into the equation. If there is a God (and there certainly is), then our lives are not our own. God grants us the privilege and obligation of living, and reaffirms it each morning when we wake up, lungs still breathing and heart still beating. There may be times when we struggle to find the purpose or point in our existence, but if we know God, then we know there is always a purpose and a point, however obscured behind our various doubts, preoccupations, and anxieties. If there were not, we would no longer be on this earth. We cannot take our lives because our lives are not ours to take. This is an unavoidable and inarguable conclusion for anyone who believes in some kind of supernatural creative power.

I’ve always thought that this concept was brilliantly illustrated in the final scene of the film Pulp Fiction, although I don’t imagine Tarantino intended that movie to be a pro-life allegory. In the last act, Samuel L. Jackson’s character, Jules, is confronted by an armed robber who demands he hand over a briefcase containing a mysterious item meant for the former’s boss. Jules refuses to surrender the package, even at gunpoint, coolly explaining that he can’t give it because it doesn’t belong to him.

So it is with our lives. I cannot destroy my life because it is not mine. It belongs to a power and authority beyond myself.

But what about those who don’t believe in such a power? Well, if there is no God, then, I admit, suicide should be entirely your decision, and it doesn’t really matter one way or another. If there is no God, nothing has any meaning beyond the meaning we subjectively infuse into it. Even in this case, however, it would be silly to speak of a “right to die.” The doctrine of human rights springs from a belief in a God who endows us with the rights. The framework of our country is built around the idea that we have natural rights—rights inherent and essential to us. Rights are supernatural by definition, or at the very least metaphysical. The point is, our rights are not a physical condition, nor can they be located somewhere within our physical bodies. We talk about our rights because we believe that there is more to us than our physical bodies, and that there is more to life than this physical world.

If that is not the case, then we should stop with this “rights” foolishness. You are nothing but skin and bones and blood, and there is no transcendent quality to you that makes you entitled to free speech, or privacy, or human dignity, or anything else. In this scenario, you would certainly be welcome to kill yourself—that might really be the most logical option, to be honest—but you can’t tell me you have a “right” to it. You have a right to nothing. You are a random beast, no more significant or valuable than the dirt from which you sprung.

But, I should note, even if there were no God and no reality transcending the physical world, our lives would still not belong entirely to ourselves. Whatever your spiritual beliefs, we must all see that we belong not only to ourselves but to our families and our friends and whoever else may depend upon us for care, attention, fraternity, and love.

I am not just “me”; I am also a father, husband, brother, son, and a dozen other labels that are determined by my relationship to and interactions with other people. These people do not own me like a slave, but I do, to some extent, owe myself to them. To my wife and my children, my duties are great; to my friends they are not as great; but to all I have some responsibility. My life is in many ways defined by what I am to these people. So if I were to kill myself, I would not just be killing myself. I would be murdering my daughter’s father and my wife’s husband and my mother’s son. I wouldn’t be killing one person. I’d be killing a hundred people.

2. There is nothing dignified about suicide.

The Left tells us that euthanasia enables the sick person to “die with dignity.” Think of the horrible implications of that statement. If it is honorable to take an early exit, what does that say about the people who choose to live with their illnesses and afflictions until death comes on its own? If the euthanasia patient “dies with dignity,” how did the cancer patient die? With shame? With dishonor?

Of course the truth is much closer to the reverse. Suicide is not dignified. One might understand the temptation in some cases, but that does not make it “dignified” for a human being to be put down like an old dog. Killing yourself to escape suffering is not brave. It is, in fact, the antithesis of bravery. If suicide is heroic, then everything we’ve previously called heroic isn’t. In any other situation, we would say that heroism and dignity are won by marching forward despite the risk of personal pain and suffering. Nowhere else will we say that the most heroic and dignified thing is to avoid the pain at any cost.

It’s said that euthanasia is dignified because it allows you to “leave on your own terms,” but what does that mean? Do we somehow achieve a victory over death by using it to escape the pain of life? “Your own terms”? The terms of the drug maker who concocted the poison pill, perhaps, but your own? Hardly. None of us get to die on our own terms, because if we did then I’m sure our terms would be a perfect, happy, and healthy life, where pain and death never enter into the picture at all.

But this is not anyone’s fate, because nobody writes the terms of their own existence. We have free will but we do not own ourselves, and we certainly cannot take ownership of ourselves by obliterating ourselves. That would be like trying to write a book with an eraser.

I sympathize with the desire to avoid pain, but we should not act upon that desire. Life is to be lived like a cup we drink until the last drop. I don’t want to descend into clichés here, but I know I’m not the only person who’s watched many a video and read many an account by and about cancer patients who endured and fought through the pain, and found something valuable amid it all. They discovered that every minute meant something—in fact, the minutes they lived in pain meant more than any of the other minutes they’d lived in health and prosperity.

It is brave and dignified to fight, to live, to keep going down our road until there is no more road left. That is what we should be celebrating.

3. Euthanasia destroys the medical profession.

Since ancient times, doctors have taken the Hippocratic oath, which outlines the core values that anyone in the medical field should abide by. The first and most basic: cure, heal, and treat the sick and suffering. This is the whole point of medicine. When we accept assisted suicide, we chip away at the very foundation of the medical field.

The obvious retort is that euthanasia can, in some cases, count as “treating” the sick. But this is to expand the definition of “treatment” to include things that are the opposite of it.

When a patient is treated, she is offered relief and healing. She—the individual person—is relieved or healed. She cannot be relieved or healed if she is ended. The treatment of a person necessitates that, among other things, the person remains in existence. Euthanasia is, therefore, death instead of treatment, not death as treatment.

And as euthanasia laws eat away at the foundational principles of medicine, doctors begin to encounter a deeply problematic conflict of interest. How can they simultaneously work to fight these diseases while also helping their patients die rather than fight the diseases?

Time, energy, and financial resources are increasingly diverted from battling terminal illnesses to putting the terminally ill out of their misery. It’s difficult to see how both avenues can be given the same attention by the same medical establishment, as they stand at odds with one another. Doctors already play both healer and executioner for babies at the earliest stages of life. Now, with the proliferation of doctor-assisted suicide, they’ll be taking on those conflicting roles for the most vulnerable people at the other end of the spectrum. In these ways, the medical profession is being fundamentally redefined.

4. This is a slippery slope.

Not every slippery-slope argument is a fallacy. Sometimes it’s just a matter of observing the direct consequences of a course of action. In this case, we don’t even need to extrapolate or conjure up wild prophecies of what might happen if our country decides to embrace euthanasia any more than it already has.

All you need to do is look overseas, where human beings, including children, can be euthanized involuntarily. Indeed, not long ago, a mother in the UK won the right to kill her disabled daughter. The child was not terminally ill but her life, by her mother’s estimation, was no longer worth living. Therefore, the girl was sentenced to death by starvation. It would be illegal to kill your livestock in such a manner, but in few countries are children protected as robustly as farm animals.

This is a logical and reasonable extension of the euthanasia argument. A doctor can only assist in a patient’s suicide if certain criteria are met. Those criteria may differ by state or country, yet they all boil down to one thing: it must be agreed that the patient’s life is not worth living.

Once we’ve made this calculation, and codified it into law, and described what sort of conditions make someone a candidate for voluntary execution, it isn’t much of a leap to start applying the “solution” to people who haven’t specifically consented to it.

As much as we pretend that euthanasia gives power to the patient, it really grants all of the power to the state and the medical establishment. It imbues them with the authority to decree which sort of lives are meaningful and which are not. Medical practitioners must fundamentally respect the dignity of life—not the dignity of suicide, but of life—or else they will be at odds with their own profession. If a perfectly healthy person walked into his doctor’s office and asked to be put down, no doctor in any state would consent to it. The euthanasia customer must fall under certain guidelines laid out by the medical field. In other words, the doctor must agree that her life is worthless. Are we really too dense to see what sort of nightmarish conflict of interest we are encouraging here?

Imagine having stage IV cancer and visiting a doctor who, just a moment earlier, prescribed a poison pill to another person in your exact same situation. Only a moment before, this doctor said to someone, “Yes, I agree that your life should end.” And now you expect him to do everything in his power to help you extend the very thing he just diagnosed as pointless?

How can we allow doctors to prescribe death? How can death ever be seen as a legitimate treatment option? If we legalize euthanasia across the country, we fundamentally change the very point and purpose of medicine. Medicine goes from something aimed at helping us live to something aimed at helping us die.

Where do you think this leads? If euthanasia is legal, and if it is only legal under certain strict circumstances, then we are saying that life, under those circumstances, is objectively undesirable. And if we say that life, under those circumstances, is objectively undesirable, then it is undesirable regardless of whether the patient desires it. The bridge from voluntary euthanasia to involuntary euthanasia is obvious. I suspect when the time comes that patients are put down whether they wish to be or not, many in our society will hardly object. We already cheer on suicide because we apparently think it foolish or even cowardly to live when suffering is inevitable and death is near. The next step is not that far a leap.

After all, suffering and death are the shared fate of all mankind. That’s not the kind of cheerful sentiment I would necessarily put on a greeting card, but it is the truth nonetheless. If we believe that death is preferable to a life of unfathomable suffering, perhaps we should all be making appointments with our local death doctors.

5. Human life is valuable.

Yes, even through suffering, through sickness, through pain, through disease and disability. You might even say especially through sickness, pain, disease, and disability. It is a grave injustice to rob a person of whatever time they have left on this planet, and it doesn’t matter how much time that happens to be.

We must all believe that, because if we didn’t believe it then we’d start handing out lesser sentences to those who murder the elderly, the disabled, or the terminally ill. Indeed, if we’re to look at this from a practical perspective, the thug who kills an eighty-nine-year-old woman probably only sped up the dying process by a few months or a few years. Why should he be judged as harshly as someone who kills, say, me?

Maybe because we don’t judge the worthiness or value of a human being based on how long she’s been around, or how much pain he’s in, or how sad and sick she feels. At least we shouldn’t judge it that way. The moment we begin to make those calculations, we forfeit any semblance of justice, compassion, and humanity.

Now, as I said, if we are nothing and we came from nothing and will return to nothing, then I suppose suicide makes some sort of sense. It returns the body to our natural state of nothingness. It brings us home into the abyss, where there is no self, no reason, no existence. But most people don’t think that. Most of us are not radical nihilists. Most of us know, deep down, that there is another dimension to this reality of ours, a deeper significance beneath the surface of everything. We know that we are threads woven into the tapestry of creation—we play a role that we don’t fully understand, our decisions have ramifications that we can’t comprehend, and our lives have a meaning beyond whatever we find in it.

So if God reached out from the depths of eternity to hand us this life of ours, how can we think it acceptable—or worse, commendable—to throw it away before our time is finished?

Inevitably, that’s what this conversation comes down to. The old questions. The oldest questions. What is life? Why are we here? What’s the point of it all?

If you celebrate suicide, then you have answered these questions: Life is nothingness. We are here for no reason. There is no point.

If you answer differently, then you must conclude that life has inherent value. That’s what this all comes back to. Liberals scratch their heads and wonder why some of us kooky Christians get so upset about things like abortion, euthanasia, and embryonic stem cell research. For some reason they won’t listen when we try to tell them: life has value. It is worth something. It is worth something beyond our feelings about it, beyond circumstance, beyond context, beyond sickness, beyond development, beyond age. Life has value.

This isn’t just a Christian concept. It is the concept on which Western civilization rests. Every noble ideal—justice, fairness, equity, compassion, charity—all of it, all of it, is grounded in the notion that human life has intrinsic value. Not value according to its usefulness, or value according to convenience, or value according to how enjoyable it is. Value. Life is valuable because it is life. If you deny this, then you deny everything. There is no reason for justice, fairness, equity, compassion, or charity if human life has no value, or merely a value contingent upon whatever parameters we’ve arbitrarily assigned. There can be no justification for any human right if we are simply commodities whose stock falls or rises.

This is why the war against liberalism must begin with the sanctity of life. If liberalism can redefine life—strip it of its value and its purpose—the game is over. There’s nothing left to argue about. But if we engage on this battlefield, if we successfully defend the proposition that all life has meaning and dignity, then we have set the stage for victory.