Charlie Gard and the sanctity of life debate.

What is life? When does it begin? When should it end?

Should we keep on life support those who have severely impaired faculties and quality of life?

Great Ormond Street Hospital is seeking to switch off the life support of critically ill baby Charlie Gard so that he may “die with dignity”, a phrase used by euthanasia supporters. However, this week Professor Michio Hirano, an expert in mitochondrial disease, flew in from the US to assess Charlie’s case and has said that a brain scan does not show evidence of irreversible damage from Charlie's rare genetic condition.¹ In recent hours the US Congress has granted Charlie and family permanent residence in the States if they wish to pursue Hirano's experimental treatment.²

Incidentally, it was revealed this week that Victoria Butler-Cole, the lawyer representing Charlie’s state-appointed guardian, heads a charity that supports assisted dying.³ So, has his case had a fair hearing?

In the same week that Charlie Gard’s case is being re-assessed, the High Court is hearing the legal challenge of a British man with motor neurone disease, dreading the progression of the disease and ‘locked-in’ syndrome, who wants to be granted a medically-assisted death.⁴

How should a Christian respond to distressing cases such as these, while staying faithful to the Bible’s teaching?

The answer is that we need to take a step back from the unsteady ground of human debate and plant our feet on the solid rock that is God’s word.

The True Value of Life

Human life is valuable not because of its quality, but because we are made in God’s image:

Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man. (Genesis 9:6)

From conception to final breath, human life is valuable and no one has the right to destroy it wilfully: “You shall not murder” (Ex 20:13).

How should a Christian respond to distressing cases such as Charlie Gard’s, while staying faithful to the Bible’s teaching?

We are created in God’s image, but we are also sinners who mar that image within us. Both our sinful nature and our awareness of the divine are present from conception:

Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb;
you taught me wisdom in that secret place. (Ps 51:5-6)

God also foreknows us: Jeremiah was told,

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations. (Jer 1:5)

If we destroy life, we destroy God’s destiny and purpose for individuals and nations.

Jacob, Esau, Samson and Jesus himself were all described as beings of destiny and purpose from conception. Jesus was “God with us” from conception. He did not become divine at a later date.⁵

Logically, how could it be any other way? At what arbitrary point (which could vary between individuals) do we say a life in the womb passes the ‘value’ or ‘potential’ test?⁶

It may be the influence of Greek thought that has led us away from biblical truth and allowed us to draw distinctions between viable collections of physical cells and human life with potential for growth and personality. Greek philosophy teaches the separation of body and soul, whereas the Bible teaches that man is a nefesh, a “living being” (Gen 2:7), inextricably body and soul from the point of creation.

In fact, the Hebrew word nefesh is commonly translated as ‘soul’. Similarly, in English, an older use of the word soul implies rescue of the complete person, body and soul (as in SOS or Save Our Souls).

We need to take a step back from the unsteady ground of human debate and plant our feet on the solid rock that is God’s word.

Biblical Principles of Love and Protection

We accept that the Bible teaches us to care for our fellow man, so how can we sanction neglect or harm to the most vulnerable - those who cannot speak?

“Love does no harm to a neighbour. Therefore love is the fulfilment of the law” (Rom 13:10). In other words, the whole of God’s Law (the Torah) is based on love and protection. Indeed, God’s law is summed up as: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’” (a combination of Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18).

Jesus told a story to epitomise that ‘royal law’, where a man treats a stranger’s medical emergency and pays for a form of hospital care.⁷ Helping the helpless and vulnerable, especially the stranger (without rights or voice), is a fundamental biblical principle: the sin of Sodom was not simply moral, rather, the residents outraged biblical decency by seeking to abuse and deny hospitality to strangers.⁸

It has been pointed out that the most inhospitable and dangerous place for any human being in today’s world is the womb. The place which should provide the utmost protection and care has become a grave for millions of human beings. Our end-of-life care centres are in danger of becoming similarly precarious places.

Trusting God’s Sovereignty

God’s word is absolute and we have to stand on its principles of absolute, divinely-revealed truth. Those who argue for assisted dying do so from a position of relative truth and situational ethics, seeking to extract overriding principles by pleading from the circumstances of individual sufferers. Indeed, it is with heart-wrenching personal cases that the media is redirecting the moral values of the nation away from God-given certainties.

Mature Christians know that they cannot exercise judgment based on relative truth and transitorily distressing and emotionally charged circumstances. Believers must stand on God’s promises and trust him to be the Sovereign Lord of all situations, even if upholding his principles becomes costly or difficult.

Believers must stand on God’s promises and trust him to be the Sovereign Lord, even if upholding his principles becomes costly.

Do we trust the Lord enough to allow him to govern all aspects of human suffering, while at the same time doing what we can to alleviate suffering and maintain life?

Keeping Charlie Gard on life support and allowing his parents to seek all possible treatment is biblically correct. By withdrawing life support, the medical team at GOSH would not be doing all they can to maintain life (which most doctors have sworn to do⁹). It would also be an unpleasant, slow way for the child to die and is effectively euthanasia because death is being chosen over life. If man possesses the power to sustain and treat him, then morally and scripturally, medics are obliged to exercise that ability.

If we believe that God is sovereign over life and death, then he can take the child to be with him at any point, whether on or off life support. If we think we must help God along by withdrawing life support, we are saying that God cannot take (or heal) the child unless we remove care. That implies that man is sovereign over life and death.

The Father’s Sacrificial Love

Just as human parents possess the unconditional love that should guide and decide their child’s treatment (unless their choices proceed from cruelty or conclusively injurious motives), so our Father God through his perfect love has the ultimate right to decide whether we live or die.

When we say that man should decide whether man lives or dies, we are denying that we have a Creator and a loving Heavenly Father, who knit us together in our mothers’ womb (Ps 139:13) and who demonstrated his love with the costliest sacrifice he could make.

When we say that unborn children and the seriously impaired (i.e. the voiceless) should be denied life or left to die, we should remember that God demonstrated his love when we too were helpless and vulnerable strangers to his promises (Eph 2:12, 19) in an inhospitable world: “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Messiah died for us” (Rom 5:8).

Who should decide how our lives should begin and end? Surely the One who created us and laid down his own life for us.

References

1 Mendick, R. Charlie Gard's parents angry that baby's lawyer is head of charity that backs assisted dying. The Telegraph, 18 July 2017.

2 Forster, K. Charlie Gard granted permanent residence in US by Congress 'to fly to America for treatment'. The Independent, 20 July 2017.

3 See 1.

4 Walsh, F. Terminally ill man Noel Conway in right-to-die fight. BBC News, 17 July 2017.

5 References: Genesis 25:21-26; Judges 13:1-7; Matthew 1:20; Luke 1:39-45.

6 For an excellent study on this topic, see The Christian Institute’s ‘When does human life begin?’ by Dr John R Ling in their Salt and Light series.

7 The Good Samaritan, Luke 10:25-37.

8 Genesis 19:1-29.

9 “Medical students usually take an oath when they graduate but there is no standard approach across the UK.” Oxtoby, K. Is the Hippocratic oath still relevant to practising doctors today? BMJ, 14 December 2016.