#214 A Christian response to assisted death 🗓
With Dr Ewan Goligher
Physician-assisted death is increasingly advocated as a patient-centered and compassionate response to the deep suffering faced by our patients. Christianity has traditionally opposed this practice as immoral and alien to medicine, but many question this opposition or struggle to defend it or are uncertain whether individual conscientious objection should be respected.
Talking about ethics and morality in medicine is challenging, especially in Western culture characterized by moral pluralism and a commitment to secularism in public moral deliberation. To what moral authority can we appeal to resolve what is right and wrong?
In this lecture, a Canadian physician who has wrestled with all these questions presents the story of his own involvement in the debate over physician-assisted death in Canada and offers an approach to explaining and defending opposition to this practice, appealing both to general revelation and to the truth about the nature and value of the human person revealed in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Recommended books:
- How Shall We Then Die? A Christian Response to Physician-Assisted Death by Ewan Goligher
- On Death and Dying: A Catechism for Christians by Ewan Goligher & Kyle Hackmann
- Right to Die by John Wyatt
- Freedom of Conscience and Medical Assistance in Dying—Clinical Perspective by Czajkowski S, Murphy S, Goligher EC
Further articles & videos:
- Responding to Peter Singer on Euthanasia - Speak Life conversation
- When MAID goes to Church
- Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in the ICU: A Dialogue on Core Ethical Issues
- No Other Options - New Atlantis article powerfully documenting the slippery slope in Canada’s euthanasia regime
Other resources:
Dr Ewan Goligher
Ewan Goligher (MD, PhD, FRCPC) is Associate Professor of Medicine and Physiology at the University of Toronto. His research focuses on life-saving interventions for patients with acute lung failure. He has published over 150 papers and several book chapters. His work has been published in leading medical journals including the New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, JAMA, and subspecialty journals.
He is also the author of "How Shall We Then Die? A Christian Response to Physician-Assisted Death", published by Lexham Press. As a specialist in critical care medicine, he cares for patients admitted to the intensive care unit with acute life-threatening illness, and he is regularly involved in helping patients and families navigate difficult decisions about medical care at the end of life.
