Editorial August 29, 1983 Issue

Choosing to live—a higher dignity

WILLIAM E. MOODY

The news magazine reported a suicide that ended a man's bout with a serious illness, and called the act a "commitment to human dignity."  Newsweek, March 14, 1983, p. 77. During recent years there has been a growing public campaign in support of the position that any person has the inherent right to end his own life.

But consider which is the higher dignity for humanity: the bleak philosophy of voluntary euthanasia or the Bible's overriding message of hope and salvation? Throughout the Scriptures there are accounts of men and women confronting the most grievous of circumstances and yet remaining steadfast to God. They went forward with faith in divine Truth and found victory, redemption, healing.

In the Old Testament we read of God's covenant with the Israelites. And as Moses presented it in his final summing up to the people, it included these words: "I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live: that thou mayest love the Lord thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the length of thy days." ^{ Deut. 30:19, 20.}

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