Responding to Kevorkian's Death

Jack Kevorkian, aka 'Dr. Death', died last week, and I feel like there should be a Christion response. While I wait to hear from our leaders, I am wondering what that response should be.

Jack Kevorkian was not a good man. He assisted in the suicides of 130 people, lethally injecting two of him himself. Most believe that he was simply helping the terminally ill have a say over how they would die. Many even consider him a hero for this. However, at least 70 percent of the people he helped commit suicide did not have a terminal illness, and, according to their autopsies, at least five were not sick at all. He was very much into macabre experimentation. He leaves a legacy of pro suicide and pro death ideology; he taught us that death could be the answer for suffering. No, Dr. Kevorkian was not a good man.

Truth be told, there's no such thing as a good man or woman. Romans says none are righteous, not one. We've all sinned. Consequently, we will all taste death, save for those who will be living at Christ's return. But even those who will be alive on that Day have experienced the sting of death, in there own physical and spiritual suffering. In losing loved ones to death. Death and sin and pain and suffering are as braided together as my hair used to be in the mornings before school. Kevorkian would have us believe that one (death) is the answer for the others (pain and suffering). However, the Good News of the Gospel is that Christ makes an end to suffering by conquering death. In HIS death and resurrection, he not only conquered death and Satan, He reconciled us to the Father Who forgives our sin through Christ's work and will bring us to His side, free of suffering, when our tired, sinful, old bodies wear out.

As Christians, we must not agree with the hopelessness of suicide. We see suffering all around us. We long to relieve it. Instead of agreeing with the hopeless- because in the hopeless mind, weary from pain, thinking is not clear- we must bring the suffering and the hurting to the Savior, Who gives eternal LIFE.

Kevorkian was no worse of a sinner than I. Without the grace of God, I very much could be spouting the same twisted logic. This is why we do not turn internally into our wicked human hearts for answers to human suffering. Now, answer we must- but it must be from our ultimate Authority- the Word of God, Who is Christ Himself.

Oklahoma House Bill Bans Embryonic Stem Cell Research

From the Daily Oklahoman article:

With just a handful of Democrats opposing, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a measure Thursday that would prohibit embryonic stem cell research in Oklahoma.

We value life here in Oklahoma," said the bill's author, Rep. George Faught, R-Muskogee. "While we in no way dispute the fact that the ability to treat or heal suffering persons is a great good, we also recognize that not all methods of achieving a desired good are morally or legally justifiable."

House Bill 1442 would make it a misdemeanor to conduct embryonic stem cell research. It also would prohibit buying, selling or transferring an embryo for research. It would exclude certain procedures such as in vitro fertilization.

The measure passed 86-8. It now goes to the Senate.

Thank you, Oklahoma Representatives!

Rep. Jeannie McDaniel, D-Tulsa, who worries about the measure's effect of medical research facilities in Oklahoma City, asks, "Why would we say Oklahoma is closed to this type of research? Why put roadblocks up?"

Because, Representative, there are far too many Oklahomans who believe either life begins at conception or think that there's a possibility that it at least MIGHT do so. Whatever one's belief, no doubt embryonic research is very controversial. As Faught mentions in the article, the research field of embryonic stem cell has generated zero results (though to be honest, this may be due to lack of funding). And, Representative, there is so much promise in ADULT or CORD BLOOD stem cell research. No human life- or potential human life, as they may say in your 'camp'- is destroyed in that process.

Listen to your constituents, Representative, and put our tax dollars into ADULT stem cell research.

Also from the article:

Dr. Stephen Prescott, a medical researcher and president of the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, said earlier that passage of the measure would send a negative message to patients about Oklahoma.

"It sends a message that we're not forward-looking about how we view issues," he said.

Heaven forbid, Dr. Prescott, that people wouldn't think we're 'forward-looking'. Besides, Dr. Prescott, have you looked forward, to the consequences that will ensue from a culture treating human life- or even potential human life- like something to be used and destroyed in the name of science? Of something that would destroy one life in the name of bettering another's? Perhaps we should look back at the 'forward-thinking' of eugenics...

As Rep. Rebecca Hamilton, D-Oklahoma City stated in the article , "It's always a very dangerous and slippery thing when you take any group of people and say that you can do to them what ever you want."