Just a few weeks ago, people around the world were fixated on the decision of 104-year-old, Australian scientist David Goodall to end his life at a euthanasia clinic in Basel, Switzerland. 

 

Media reports about it were largely positive using adjectives like “powerful” and “courageous” to describe his decision. 

 

Goodall claimed his motivation was in part done to “raise awareness” of the “injustice” that elderly people often face when they don’t want to live any longer. For Goodall, continuing to live without the legal option of euthanasia was seen as a denial of what he believed was a basic human “right” — ending his life however and whenever he wanted. 

 

For those unfamiliar with his story, it is important to contextualize his decision by noting that he was not suffering from a terminal illness, nor did he claim he was in physical pain. He simply decided he didn’t want to live any longer and wanted to control how and when he died. 

 

Additionally, he had been an outspoken proponent of assisted suicide and euthanasia for the last 20 years and was associated with groups advocating for their legalization. 

 

His death, therefore, was carried out in a manner that would bring as much attention as possible to his case. Certainly, he was not the first to do so. Others, like 29-year-old Brittany Maynard in 2014, likewise attracted great media attention to their cause leading up to their decision to end their life. 

 

What was particularly poignant about Goodall’s case, was that it subtly highlighted the actual stated motivation for the vast majority of cases involving assisted suicide in our own country and indeed, throughout much of the world. 

 

While advocates largely claim they are about ending suffering, and while it is true that some people choose it for this reason, the reason most often given, even for those diagnosed with a terminal illness, comes down to a question of autonomy, not pain. 

 

The State of Oregon (the first state to legalize assisted suicide) publishes a yearly report about their “Death with Dignity” act which includes the motivation for choosing assisted suicide. Every year the number one reason given is the concern over “losing autonomy.” About 91 percent of people list this as a motivation in choosing assisted suicide. 

 

The least cited reasons for choosing it are concerns over pain and finances (see the Oregon.gov website’s “Death with Dignity Act” annual report for more information). 

 

Autonomy — or the ability to make one’s own decisions — is a real concern for all of us, especially as Christians. It is a part of the exercise of our God-given free will, which is a hallmark of human dignity. Therefore, it is a very good thing. 

 

However, what our free will chooses is even more important at the end of the day than the fact that it has the power to choose. 

 

Using it to choose evil or to choose against God will never lead us to happiness. 

 

Seeing the mere exercise of autonomy as something more valuable than the object of its choice or the moral consequences of that choice, loses sight of the reason God endowed us with this faculty in the first place. It is given so that we might have the ability to freely choose that which is good, not simply for the act of choosing anything or directing our lives in opposition to God. 

 

What might be missed — not only in cases like Goodall’s, but for each of us in our moral choices — is that autonomy can easily become a false god. 

 

This is especially the case if it is used to supplant that which is uniquely God’s domain, namely, sovereignty over life and death. 

 

An autonomy which doesn’t choose that which is good will never lead to the exaltation of the human person. To the contrary, it will become the very instrument through which a person is led furthest from it.