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If legislation is passed to legalize euthanasia, it will no longer be wrong by breaking the laws of the land.
Opponents of euthanasia fear the devaluation of human life. The gift of life is not something to be thrown away. Putting to death that which is made in the image of God (NIV, Genesis 1:27) has always been considered unethical by Christian standards. A physician administering life-terminating medication is in violation of the sixth commandment "thou shalt not kill" (KJV, Exodus 20:13).
The commonly quoted "thou shalt not kill" is also translated as "you shall not murder" (NIV, Exodus 20:13). Killing is defined as "deprive of life" (Miriam-Webster); murder is defined as the crime of "unlawfully killing a person often with malice aforethought" (Miriam-Webster). To further differentiate, God commanded the armies of Isreal (with the laws written down) to kill entire cities of people, but God never commanded the Isrealites to murder.
The Bible does gives an accounbt of a request for death with dignity.
Saul said to his armor-bearer, "Draw your sword and run me through, or else these uncircumcised fellows will and run me through and abuse me." But his armor bearer was terrified and would not do it, so Saul took his own sword and fell on it (NIV, 1 Samuel 31:41).An Amalekite appeared before David after the death of Saul, and he told David:
"And there was Saul, leaning on his spear, with the chariots and riders almost upon him. When he turned around and saw me, he called out to me, and I said, 'What can I do?' Then he said to me, 'Stand over me and kill me! I am in the throes of death, but I am still alive.' So I stood over him and killed him, because I knew that after he had fallen he could not survive.'"Saul's armor bearer feared the action of killing his king, so he did not. This led to disobedience of the king's orders, so he killed himself. The Amalekite regocnized a man in suffering, pleading to be put down. The Amalekite did so and was killed by David. David, was angrier at the death of the king rather than the death of a man. Any other person, and the Amalekite would not have been executed.
David asked him, "Why were you not afraid to lift your hand to destroy the LORD's anointed?" Then David called at one of his men and said, "Go, strike him down." So he struck him down and [the Amalekite] died. For David said to him, "Your blood be on your own head. Your own mouth testified against you when you said, 'I killed the LORD's anointed!'" (NIV, 2 Samuel 1:6,7,9,14-16).
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