Last December, Ohio Gov. John Kasich signed a bill into law which makes assisted suicide a felony. Kudos to our two-term Republican governor.
Ohio House Bill 470 makes assisted suicide a third-degree felony, and anyone convicted can face up to five years in prison if convicted.
I’ve been there. I’ve sat at my father’s bedside and watched him die. Several years later, I found my mother near death in her bathroom from a brain aneurysm – she died that night in Hospice care.
I have been involved in the pro-life movement for many years. In fact, I was on the board for Ohio Right to Life for a while. I also served on an advisory board for our local Hospice organization. Naturally, when people talk and think about being pro-life, they assume you are talking about abortion.
The issue of assisted suicide and euthanasia sometimes does not get the ink that unborn babies get. And that’s okay. It’s an issue that can be extremely touchy and sensitive. After all, when we talk about euthanasia or assisted suicide, we are dealing with a person’s actual documented lifetime.
The bill that Kasich signed strengthened Ohio’s protections against assisted suicide, which previously only allowed a court to issue an injunction against anyone helping or assisting people to kill themselves.
During my years on the Ohio board and throughout my involvement in Scioto County Right to Life, I have heard many arguments from people in favor of assisted suicide. I even went through a speaker’s training course on euthanasia where I was trained how to handle heckling and tough questions. And there are some tough ones. It all comes down to education and understanding. Emotion should have no part.
But no matter how tough the questions may be, killing a person in the name of compassion is never the answer. You see, calling it compassion is a complete disguise, and it makes the people making the decision feel less guilty about reality.
No one but God can give life – therefore, God should be the only one to take a life. Sadly, the latter is not the case.
Mike Gonidaki