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Recently, here in Canada, a man named Robert Latimer was released from prison, after having been convicted of killing his severely disabled daughter several years ago. He is appealing his conviction, because in his mind, he had committed a merciful act. Merciful to whom?

My niece was born severely disabled. One of the many afflictions she suffered was cerebral palsy, like Robert Latimer's daughter. Because of a virtually nonexistent immune system since birth, my niece finally died of pneumonia a few years ago, at the age of 32. No one I know considered her death to be merciful. She lived a happy, active life, albeit "with a little help from her friends". She was intelligent, joyful, and had a deep faith in Jesus Christ. She was an inspiration.

From what I recall, Latimer's daughter was not even as severely disabled as my niece. But he thought ending her life was the "merciful" thing to do. Who gets to decide that? Who decides whether someone's life is worth living or not? How often do we allow our emotions cloud our judgement? How often do we allow our own discomfort and our own agendas to cloud our judgement? Is euthanasia merciful for the person who is supposedly suffering from some ailment, or is it merciful for those who care for said individual?

Ever since the Garden of Eden, human beings have been trying to play God. The temptation in the Garden wasn't a piece of fruit. It was the prospect of being "like God, knowing good and evil" (Genesis 3:5). We've been trying to be like God ever since. We humans want to make the decisions. We want to create great things, even life itself. We want to determine our surroundings, our circumstances, even our future.

And so it is that Robert Latimer did a very human thing trying to make decisions on behalf of his daughter. He tried to be like God, but he got confused on the good and evil part. He convinced himself that doing something that God has identified as evil was really the right thing to do. We humans are always looking for the mitigating circumstances to justify doing what we know is wrong. God did give us a conscience, after all. We're always looking for an excuse to call good evil and evil good.

Apparently, having the knowledge of good and evil hasn't helped us much. In fact, it's caused more problems because humans don't know how to handle it. We need God's wisdom to make the tough decisions. Any decision regarding who lives and who dies should be left to God. Any decision regarding what a person's quality of life is and if it's worth living should be left to God. Any decision regarding right and wrong should at least be referred to God for consultation. To do that, try prayer. You can also find the answers in God's Word, known as the Bible. I believe you'll find written there that murder is wrong. And I don't recall any mitigating circumstances being listed.

Murder is wrong, whether it's a disabled child, a relative in a coma, or an unborn baby. We need to stop playing God. We're not very good at it.

Learn more about this author, Thomas Bailey.
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