John Paul II on the Value of Human Life and Euthanasia – Prof. Christopher Tollefsen

The Thomistic Institute

Religion & Spirituality, Society & Culture, Philosophy, Christianity, Catholic Intellectual Tradition, Catholic, Thomism, Catholicism

4.8 • 873 Ratings

🗓️ 23 January 2026

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Prof. Christopher Tollefsen explains John Paul II on euthanasia, showing how the Pope’s vision of human life as a sacred gift, bearing God’s image and destined for eternal friendship with Him, rules out any claim to a right to kill oneself or others.

This lecture was given on September 23rd, 2025, at University of South Carolina.

For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.

About the Speakers:

Christopher Tollefsen is Professor of Philosophy at the University of South Carolina. He has published over 100 articles in journals and edited collections, and a similar number of popular essays in venues such as Public Discourse, First Things, and National Review. He is the author of Lying and Christian Ethics and the forthcoming Killing and Christian Ethics, and is co-author of The Way of Medicine: Ethics and the Healing Profession (with Dr. Farr Curlin) and Embryo: A Defense of Human Life (with Robert P. George). In 2019-20, he served as a Commissioner on the State Department’s Commission on Unalienable Rights. He has twice been a Visiting Fellow in the James Madison Program at Princeton University, and in 2024-25 was a Visiting Fellow at the DeNicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame.

Keywords: Euthanasia, Evangelium Vitae, Gift of Life, Human Destiny, Human Dignity, Imago Dei, Inviolability of Human Life, John Paul II, Life and Death, Lordship of God over Life, Sacredness of Human Life, Usurping God’s Role in Life and Death

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to the Timistic Institute podcast.
0:06.0	Our mission is to promote the Catholic intellectual tradition in the university, the church, and the wider public square.
0:13.0	The lectures on this podcast are organized by university students at Temistic Institute chapters around the world.
0:19.0	To learn more and to attend these events, visit us at to mystic institute.org.
0:25.5	I'm going to talk about what is now commonly called medical assistance and dying.
0:30.3	And specifically, I'm going to talk about physician-assisted suicide and various forms of
0:34.4	euthanasia, just so that we're all familiar with some of the terminology
0:38.6	that's used in this area. Physician-assisted suicide is what happens when a physician
0:42.9	writes a prescription for somebody who wants to die in order to end their suffering or for
0:47.8	any other reason, and then that person takes the medicine loosely so-called themselves.
0:54.2	Euthanasia comes in a number of different forms, the most common of which in this particular the medicine loosely so-called themselves, right?
0:58.5	Uthanasia comes in a number of different forms, the most common of which in this particular discussion is voluntary euthanasia, which is to say somebody has asked for euthanasia and
1:05.8	the physician administers whatever lethal drug is going to be provided him or herself, right? So the patient doesn't take the medicine, the physician administers whatever lethal drug is going to be provided him or herself.
1:12.1	So the patient doesn't take the medicine, the physician administers the death-dealing medication.
1:18.1	Voluntary is when that's been asked for.
1:20.6	Involuntary, euthanasia is when the euthanasia has not been asked for,
1:25.6	and that's typically because the patient is incompetent in one respect or another, such as, for instance, they're a newborn child, right?
1:32.0	That also occurs in various places.
1:34.8	Sorry, that would be non-voluntary euthanasia.
1:37.2	Involuntary euthanasia is when euthanasia is administered against the patient's wishes.
1:43.6	Not common, but perhaps is not unheard of in certain
1:47.5	respects. In the United States, various forms of physician-assisted suicide are permitted in
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Thomistic Institute, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Thomistic Institute and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.