What is human life?

SHOULD we accept the case for assisted dying (Last Rights, Letters July 29)?

This issue raises the essential, fundamental question, ‘What is human life?’

Are we humans just pond scum (the late Stephen Hawking), lumps of meat (Richard Dawkins), merely atoms and chemicals (the late Bertrand Russell, et al.), no better than flies and fleas, except more highly developed, living in a meaningless universe that is merely the result of an accident and that will finally disintegrate, and in which all humans are heading for oblivion, without any final accountability, no Day of Judgement?

Or are we made in the image and likeness of God and finally accountable to Him?

If the former were true then it would be fine to go ahead with assisted dying because, in the end, human existence would be pointless anyway.

So it shouldn’t surprise us as we look around our world today that we see so much suffering inflicted by humans on humans.

There is violence and murder, humans injuring and killing one another with knives, machetes and guns, robbery and rape, drug trafficking, human trafficking - the list is endless.

Why does this happen? Because the perpetrators have no respect for the human beings they ill-treat and dispose of.

And if you suppose there is no Day of Judgement then it doesn’t really matter, as long as you can get away with it – very much the prevailing culture!

But when we believe we are made in the image and likeness of God, that human life is sacred, and that we are ultimately accountable to Him as our Creator and Judge, we have the highest regard for all our fellow humans – each human life has intrinsic meaning, value and purpose – with the result that we seek to treat others as we would want them to treat us.

Medically assisted death would not be euthanasia, as DignityinDying member, Ann Taylor, says. Nevertheless it would most certainly strengthen the hands of those powerful and influential people who are determinedly working for its legalisation; it would indeed be the first step on the road to euthanasia, the thin end of a very sinister wedge.

Bryan Shingler.