“…He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44, NIV).

 

Language can be cloak and dagger—particularly when that “old serpent” is speaking who is none other than Satan. He is the father of lies, as noted in John 8:44. He is the original liar. Adam and Eve experienced Satan’s craftiness firsthand when he asked Eve in Genesis 3:1, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” and then went on to lie and say to her in Genesis 3:4, “You will not certainly die” (NIV).

 

And he has been deceiving mankind since with the intent to “steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10) with words that sound good and reasonable. Satan’s primary weapon against God’s creation is to lie and plant seeds of doubt to confuse what God has said. I see this particularly in the bioethics issues I address through our advocacy work. The use of human, worldly wisdom, or what I will call “sophisticated lies,” are applied throughout our healthcare systems, throughout our state legislatures and through Congress, spread by and increasingly believed by the public, carrying out the enemy’s work to destroy God’s creation. The state advocacy efforts I primarily engage in, in partnership with a number of our members, public policy partners and concerned citizens are to protect life at all stages from beginning to end of life, legislation that will provide compassionate care—and not irreversible harm—to minors struggling with gender dysphoria, plus several related issues in between. I absolutely hate the enemy. I am grateful to do this work alongside others who know God’s truth and will courageously and lovingly speak it and winsomely represent it to counter the reasonable sounding sophisticated lies. Only Truth, who is Jesus Christ, counters the liar/thief by being the One who came “that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10, NIV). In our collective advocacy efforts at the state and federal level, it is our prayer that deceived hearts and minds will be transformed by the spoken truth; thereby, we will hopefully stem evil’s further spread. We pray for godly wisdom to uncloak and dismantle the sophisticated lies with more reliance upon godly wisdom than faulty human wisdom.

 

In addressing our culture’s numerous “reasonable sounding” and sophisticated lies, one of the areas it is increasingly perpetuated is on the issue of assisted suicide. One of the biggest proponents of assisted suicide, Compassion & Choices, has long fed the public sophisticated lies about providing them or their loved one suffering from a terminal diagnosis a “painless and peaceful death,” when it is anything but. One of our public policy partners in the fight against assisted suicide, Patients Rights Action Fund, dispels some of those lies in their document, “The Unintended and Dangerous Consequences of Assisted Suicide.” (Assisted suicide proponents have expanded the use of lethal prescriptions to include non-terminal illnesses and mental illness. Another horrific by-product of sophisticated lies: they lack restraints.)

 

A development as of late though from Compassion & Choices: Overwhelmingly, assisted suicide is sought out primarily by white, wealthy, privileged individuals. In California, per the California Department of Public Health July 2023 report, under California’s End of Life Options Act (EOLA), 1,270 patients requested and were prescribed lethal prescriptions (either in 2022 or 2021), of which 853 patients ingested and died by the lethal prescriptions in 2022. Of the 853 individuals who died pursuant to the EOLA in 2022, 89 percent were white and 51.6 percent were male. However, Compassion & Choices is working overtime to ensure that more African Americans and Hispanics will access lethal prescription doses—all under the guise of “health equity.”

 

You got it. “Health equity.” Another sophisticated lie. On page 10 of the Compassion & Choices 2021-2022 Annual Report, it is immediately clear that in their commitment to address “healthcare inequities” and “advance equity at life’s end,” they knew to slink up next to friendly organizations in the Black and brown community such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and to develop faith-based initiatives under the guise of attempting to demonstrate they understand me and others who are Black and brown. I can tell you, as a Black woman, that I am not down with that.

 

What Compassion & Choices has failed to understand about “us” is that, whether pursuing a home purchase or home sale, seeking fair credit options or being told that our Black men were being treated for “bad blood” in exchange for free medical exams, free meals and burial insurance (aka, the 1932 Untreated Syphilis Study at Tuskegee Institute), none of whatever is promised turns out as it was promised to us. The Tuskegee Syphilis Study, among other atrocities, created a historical distrust that Black patients have with healthcare professionals. In fact, the distrust is so great that Blacks may not seek care when they need it, fearing the healthcare industry will not pursue their best outcomes. This fear alone has widened healthcare disparities disproportionately among Blacks.

 

When patients, overwhelmingly white patients, considering assisted suicide are promised a “peaceful death” at the time of their choosing, we have learned and heard the horror stories from family members who watched their loved one suffer for days and horrifically so from the lethal prescription doses. We could not expect the experience to be any better for those Black and brown—particularly when insurance companies in states with assisted suicide have offered individuals inexpensive drugs to end their life rather than provide expensive life-saving treatment or high-quality palliative and hospice care. They will be all too in a hurry to usher our death—rather than funding the support and care we need. No thank you. This “health equity cause” does not serve us.

 

The real solution for resolving healthcare inequities is done by recognizing and honoring the intrinsic value and worth of every human life, thereby rejecting any intent to produce death. Killing a patient is not healthcare. Rather, we should advocate for better training of healthcare professionals to provide superb palliative and hospice care.

 

Assisted suicide and such sophisticated lies are dangerous for every patient—white, Black, brown and other.