But on October 17, 1988 a US District Court said she had the right to die, and granted her husband's long-sought request to end the feedings and water.  The hospital had refused, on ethical grounds, to be the agent of death.  It fell to the Court to decide.  On November 16, 1988, Marcia Gray was transferred, by Court order, from that hospital which had fought to sustain her, to one that saw no ethical barriers.  Sentenced to die in a manner too cruel for our most heinous of murderers, her life support was promptly removed.  Two weeks, 50 pounds, and uncounted seizures later, she died of starvation and dehydration.

Human sacrifices to propitiate the gods.  It isn't a new practice.  To the god called "Dignity" we this day sacrifice Marcia Gray.  To the gods called "Privacy", "Choice", and "Free Trade" we sacrifice over 4000 children each day.  The Marcia Grays, and those millions, have this in common:  they are said to be helpless and incompetent.  To the gods of "Power" and "Self-sufficiency" we sacrifice them all.

There are those who have become evangelical about euthanasia, as some have become for abortion.  But such devotion to death must surely, and soon, become disfigurement.  That, at least, should be the lesson of the holocaust and the gulag.  Now the Federal Courts have found a right to die, as obscure as the right to privacy.  And all that is required for a person to exercise these rights is the incompetence and helplessness of the victim, a power of attorney, and a merchant of death.

But Christians are supposed to understand that to worship any god other than the one true God is to worship death.  No persuasive argument for this dark obsession has been advanced based upon the righteousness of God.  Beware the argument for death as some convoluted consequence of love, understanding, and compassion.  Such an argument cannot be made without an appeal to the false gods of Dignity, Choice, Privacy, and the rest.  It is not convincing to argue that the right to die is "unalienable and endowed by the Creator".  There is no scriptural pronouncement equivalent to "Mothers, you shall destroy your children in your womb because you fear them, or fear for them; husbands and wives, you shall neglect unto death your beloved whose living you despise."

Christian, you have chosen to serve the God of Life.  The next time the subject arises of an individual's right to destroy helpless and incompetent human life in the name of this good or that, will you recognize it for the idolatry it is?  Will you be inept, silent, confused, hesitating, and afraid?  Or will you be able to give reason with conviction?  Will you understand God's command, "You shall have no other gods before Me"?  Will you believe His prohibition, "You shall not kill"?  Will you stand before God and speak before men?