Euthanasia as the Romanticization and Legalization of Suicide

Euthanasia is not mercy. It is dehumanization, reducing people to burdens or costs, and denying the sacredness of life.

Nebojša Lazić is a writer and a leading young conservative voice based in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily align with those of The American Postliberal.

Why is euthanasia an unethical act, a romanticized form of suicide and a dehumanizing practice at odds with Christian values?

The question touches the very core of human existence. Across history, cultures and creeds have wrestled with the meaning of life: religion sees life as God’s gift, philosophy searches for rational principles to safeguard it, and modern science, blind to the spiritual, reduces life to what can be measured and dissected. Our attitude toward euthanasia is inseparable from our attitude toward life itself.

History offers a sobering warning. Euthanasia is not a new idea; it has already left blood on the pages of the past. Nazi Germany’s Aktion T4 program, from 1939 to 1941, killed over 70,000 people deemed “incurably ill.” These were not acts of mercy but systematic killings carried out under the mask of compassion.

This is the danger of blurring the line between empathy and abuse of power. Today’s secular culture cloaks euthanasia as a “right to die,” claiming compassion for the sick and dignity for the suffering. Yet in practice, it gives doctors the role of arbiters over life and death, something diametrically opposed to the Christian worldview.

Christianity teaches that man’s purpose is communion with God, in this life and the next. Euthanasia, however, romanticizes death as liberation and disguises suicide as compassion.

Even the term “euthanasia” has been twisted. From the Greek eu (“good”) and thanatos (“death”), it once signified a noble end, a courageous passing, like Antigone’s defiance or Hector’s sacrifice. It was not an escape from pain but an exalted act of dignity.

Today, it has been rebranded to justify killing, a direct violation of the Hippocratic Oath: “I will not give a deadly drug to anyone if asked, nor suggest such counsel.” A doctor who takes life ceases to be a healer and becomes an executioner.

As scripture reminds us: “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Mark 8:36). In a society that reduces man to a clever animal, denying his divine origin, euthanasia appears logical, but only because it excludes God as the Giver of life. The faithful pray for “a Christian ending to our life, painless, blameless, peaceful, and a good defense before the dread judgment seat of Christ.”

That “good death” is not administered by human hands but granted by God. Man is not an isolated individual. His life is bound to family, community, and the Creator. The death of one person is never his alone, it wounds all who love him.

Often, the desire for euthanasia is a cry of loneliness, not a free choice. True “dignity in dying” means to be surrounded by love, not to be dispatched by a syringe. Medical ethics reflect this truth.

In Serbia, as in much of the world, doctors swear not to kill, even at a patient’s request. The Serbian Medical Chamber condemns euthanasia as false compassion. The argument of pain is a false flag: in the Netherlands, where euthanasia is legal, only 4% of cases are due to pain. Most involve loneliness, abandonment, or the fear of being a burden.

In an age of advanced palliative care, with medications capable of eliminating even the severest pain, why should killing be portrayed as mercy?

The Fathers of the Church teach that death is a moment of reflection, repentance, and preparation for resurrection. Illness and mortality remind us that earthly life is not eternal. To paraphrase the teaching of Patriarch Pavle, suffering points us to the deeper meaning of existence.

To romanticize death is to rob it of its truth, and to rob the living of their chance to love the dying until the very end. Modernity preaches autonomy, but autonomy is distorted when reduced to individualism. Life is not private property to be disposed of like a commodity; it is a sacred gift entrusted by God.

True freedom is not the right to destroy ourselves but the ability to live responsibly, in relation to others and to the Creator. Our culture worships youth, convenience, and utility, while fearing death more than ever. This fear, paradoxically, drives the cult of euthanasia, a form of thanatolatry, the worship of death itself.

From liberal strongholds in Europe and North America, we see “death with dignity” movements that extend beyond the terminally ill to the depressed, the disabled, and the socially vulnerable. What begins as compassion becomes license for a culture of death.

Euthanasia is not mercy. It is dehumanization, reducing people to burdens or costs, and denying the sacredness of life. True compassion does not kill, it comforts, accompanies, and loves to the end.

The challenge before us is to reclaim a culture of life: to stand firm against false humanism and to affirm that every life, until its God-given end, is worthy of dignity, care, and love.

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