The Life Challenges Podcast
Modern-day issues from a Biblical perspective.
The Life Challenges Podcast
What’s Trending? Assisted Suicide, Autonomy, and AI Relationships
Culture is racing toward comfort, control, and convenience—and the cost is showing up in our laws, our relationships, and our shared sense of right and wrong. We dive into Illinois’ move toward legalizing assisted suicide, the long-game strategy that normalizes it across states, and a striking proposal in Scotland to create buffer zones that silence dissent near places where assisted deaths occur. These developments aren’t just policy curiosities; they reveal what we believe about suffering, human dignity, and the role of the state in life and death.
We also unpack a headline-grabbing AI “wedding” and what it says about the allure of frictionless companionship. Real love requires patience, sacrifice, and forgiveness; AI romance offers a mirage of intimacy with none of the risk. When marriage is reduced to personal fulfillment, we lose a cross-cultural truth: marriage orients us beyond ourselves—toward mutual good, community, and often children. That loss echoes in other spaces too, from social isolation to declining birthrates, where technology fills the quiet but rarely heals the ache.
Threaded through the conversation is a deeper question: are moral claims just preferences, or do they point to something objectively true about people and purpose? We challenge the idea that the slippery slope is only a fallacy by tracking how premises around “choice” predictably expand policy boundaries. From a high-profile prisoner seeking access to legal suicide to the way dissent is policed, the logic keeps unfolding: if autonomy is everything, limits become arbitrary. We propose a better path—medicine that relieves pain without ending life, public spaces that protect compassionate speech, and relationships that favor depth over customization.
If this resonated, share it with a friend, subscribe for future episodes, and leave a review to help others find the show. Then tell us: where should society draw the line on autonomy, death, and the promises of AI?
SHOW NOTES:
1. Illinois Poised to Legalize Assisted Suicide: In a surprise move in the early hours of Friday morning (10-31-25), the Illinois State Senate quietly took up and passed a bill to legalize assisted suicide by a one-vote margin. SB 1950 came up on the floor after 2 am during a veto session, with Senators voting 30-27 (with two not voting). The House passed SB 1950 in the spring, so the bill now goes to Governor Pritzker. (Source: https://tinyurl.com/2d2urbr9 accessed 10-31-25)
2. Convicted would-be Trump assassin asks to be imprisoned in state that authorizes assisted suicide. (Source: thehill.com)
3. Japanese Woman Marries AI Partner: A woman in Japan broke off an established relationship with a real person in favor of an AI entity that “truly understands her.” (Source: https://tinyurl.com/2cnjwu3x accessed 11-13-25)
The ministry of Christian Life Resources promotes the sanctity of life and reaches hearts with the Gospel. We invite you to learn more about the work we're doing: https://christianliferesources.com/
On today's episode.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and I'm not going to say it's going to be true in every instance. It's ironic that something that people are saying, oh well, um, I'm not getting what I need from real people, so I've got to get it from AI. That as much as they say it's about others, that that other person they need in their life, it's fundamentally self-centered. It's I don't want to have to do the work, make the sacrifices, be understanding and such with a real person. Um, I don't want to, you know, do whatever's required of me in order to make a relationship work. Instead, I'm gonna go for an AI person who's there's never gonna be any stress, any conflict, or anything there, because that's what you know this AI is designed for. Welcome to the Life Challenges Podcast from Christian Life Resources. Our world today presents people with complicated issues of life and death, marriage and family, health, and science. It can be a struggle to understand or deal with them. We're here to help by bringing good information and a fresh biblical perspective to these matters and more. Join us now for life challenges.
SPEAKER_01:Hi, and welcome back. I'm Krista Potritz, and I'm here today with Pastors Bob Fleischmann and Jeff Samelson. And today we are going to talk about our November, sorry, our December current events.
SPEAKER_00:I'm sorry it's that time of the year too.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I know. I know. I can't believe it's already December. But we have uh uh quite a few things, like always, to discuss. And one of the things that we are going to start with, I mean, one of the things really just on our radar at Christian Life Resources is what is being done and going on with assisted suicide. And this is a topic that we have talked about and really makes our current events, you know, every once in a while here too. And so there is new developments in a few different places, but maybe starting with what is going on with Illinois.
SPEAKER_00:I don't know what may have happened by the time this finally gets uh this episode gets released, but uh right at the end of October, the Illinois Senate and passed a bill basically legalizing assisted suicide in the state of Illinois. And uh, since it had already been passed by the Illinois House, that means it's going to the Governor Pritzker for his signature. I don't believe he's indicated one way or the other what he's going to do. There are lots of people, fortunately, who are trying to pressure him and say, no, this is not good. We should not do this. Please veto this. But Illinois's um law is set up in such a way that he can just kind of not act. If he doesn't sign it, you know, refuse to sign it, um, then it automatically becomes law after a certain period. And um, you know, there there's certainly a great risk. Uh Pritzker does not have a reputation as a social conservative. Uh, so it seems pretty likely that Illinois is going to become the uh the next state in the U.S. to legalize assisted suicide. Making it, I believe it's the 12th?
SPEAKER_02:It'll be the 13th. 13th.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. Yeah, so that's uh something that uh we're all here in Wisconsin right now, but uh it's gonna be right at our borders now uh that uh assisted suicide is is legal.
SPEAKER_02:Aaron Powell You know, back in um the early 1990s when Jack Kavorky and assisted Janet Atkins were terminating her life. Uh at that time it was kind of a joke. And we've talked about that before on the on the show. And what what what ended up happening, of course, is it was the beginning of kind of a wave of starting to get legislators to look more and more at it. And and I'd mentioned earlier too that Derek Humphrey, who uh who died not too long ago, who had written the recipe book on dying, the final exit, he had said that their goal was to get people to keep talking about it, keep talking about it to the point where they become used to talking about it. And so I I remember once, I can't remember where I was in the United States speaking, but I remember saying that I think that there's a possibility that we could turn things around on abortion, but I don't think we're gonna ever succeed on end-of-life issues because the appeal of uh autonomy, the appeal that I can decide for myself is gonna be too strong. We can make an argument for the unborn child on abortion, and that can be compelling for some. But even otherwise pro-life people on abortion just feel that, oh, at the end of life, people should just be able to decide, go out on their own terms. And so right now, like I just mentioned when Jeff was talking there, that if Illinois passes this, they'll be the thirteenth state. There are over 18 states that are dealing with pending legislation. Here in Wisconsin, there's actually a meeting that I've been invited to on Thursday to deal with that. Now, Wisconsin has been proposing assisted suicide legislation for decades. In fact, that uh when I told that story about being on that interview, that radio show with Derrick Humphrey, that was the first year it was uh proposed. So we're talking, you know, 20 years, 20 plus years. So it but that's the strategy, you just keep bringing it up and bringing it up, and pretty soon it catches on.
SPEAKER_01:Even though we are seeing that, uh, and as you mentioned, the 13th state to do assisted suicide. We also do keep a close eye on other places too, um, in Christian life resources. And so uh Jeff, you had found some interesting things going on in Scotland.
SPEAKER_00:Aaron Powell Yeah, Scotland is uh kind of an interesting uh geopolitical thing. They're they're part of the United Kingdom, but they've got a certain level of autonomy from the rest of uh the the British Parliament and such. And uh actually the British Parliament is also discussing assisted suicide at this time, but this was just something really specific about the Scottish uh plan that uh just you know really got my attention that there's been uh a bill legalizing assisted suicide for for Scotland before their parliament. A member of their Green Party recently proposed an amendment to the bill that was already there that would create a censored buffer zone around any facility where assisted suicides might take place. Basically meaning if this is designated as a place where assisted suicides are going to happen, nobody can go around there, whether it's in the building, outside the building, on the sidewalk or whatever, and be doing anything to try to convince people not to take their lives through assisted suicide. This is not much different from the laws they currently have regarding protesting abortion. Um, that you can't, you know, people have been prosecuted in the UK over over this. But it is really frightening to think that your mother has decided that there's no point anymore, she's got terminal cancer or whatever, she's gonna go in and and and go for assistant suicide. But you know, she's not she's still a little bit on the fence. You will not be able to go there where she is and say, Mom, no, no, don't do this and give her any reasons. No, because it's it's illegal. Or will be again if if this passes, and and I don't know if it will, but it's exactly the kind of thing that even if it doesn't pass at this first level, from what we know about the way things uh uh work with uh assisted suicide and euthanasian laws, if they get it in now next year or two years down the road, then they'll add in these provisions.
SPEAKER_02:The thing that's really been crazy, now a lot of the pro-life groups, the religious pro-life groups, have been doing a lot of intense writing about the image of God, you know, man made in God's image. And because human life was created in the image of God, we understand that first of all, as human life's specialness in all of creation. We do recognize that image of God was compromised with the fall into sin and restored through Christ, but it also is a designation for humans' specialness in all creation, and as a result, when people lose sight of that, they begin to treat human life like animal life. When it's no longer valuable, we terminate it. And people should be allowed to control how they want to exit the world. Now we have some of the greatest technology of all time to alleviate pain, to alleviate suffering. But because we become so obsessed with creating heaven on earth that when we find out that we can't have that heaven on earth because our life is beginning to ebb away from cancer or whatever it is, it's almost like one last act of raising the tyrant fist and saying, I'm going out on my terms, and so we want to do it. That's why assistance suicide just keeps capturing the imagination of sinful people. We can be like God. We can have our own jurisdiction over who lives and who dies.
SPEAKER_00:It's kind of ironic that in asserting this individual human right and authority, you know, elevating that, you end up treating yourself and others on the level of animals.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Yeah. You know, and but you know, think about this for a moment. What if, what if it is really true that out of all of that was created, human life was at the top? They were the best. They were they were what God said, I'm making this in my image. They're so important. What if that's really true? Is this anything even remotely something acceptable to God? And yet why does it catch on? Well, because the sinful mind is hostile to God. Every inclination of our heart is evil. If all of that is true, this is why people jump onto these bandwagons and they just think, well, I want to control it. Now we're we're dealing with end-of-life issues in our own household. And as we deal with it, you you definitely understand where people are coming from, but at the same time, we gotta quit seeing ourselves as Lord and Masters of our universe and simply stewards of God's creation.
SPEAKER_01:I think it's just stems from this idea that everybody just you just do you. And I I mean, I even feel that too, like even it even makes witnessing hard too. Like when you're trying to tell somebody, it's like, oh yeah, well, yeah, church works for you, Krista, or church, I mean, that's that's great for you. And that it's I don't know, it just it's hard to get past like, no, this isn't just about me. Like, this is about everybody. And it's just it's such a hard place now.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's it's on on so many issues. You as a a Christian, uh or just in a political sense or whatever, you make a truth claim. This is what is true. And the other side, to the extent that we're talking about sides, they interpret that as a preference claim. Oh, that's that's just what you like. That's what what you're most comfortable with. And you know, that's where you get to this idea, that's your truth. I have my truth. And so a lot of times you just need to get back to like, no, no, you misunderstand. I am making a truth claim. I am saying what is right and what is wrong. That's what I would like you to respond to. And a lot of people just they they are not equipped to uh address things that way because it's it's just not part of the way that the culture works and that they have been educated.
SPEAKER_02:Now I was I was raised public school, but in history you learn that America is a melting pot. It's a melting pot of different people, different races, different cultures, different religions, and so forth. So there's a strong emphasis on we all kind of get to decide for ourselves how we want to live and our freedoms and so forth. Jeff makes a great point on it. But a lot of times our own people often sit back and say, well, it doesn't affect me directly, so we want to allow it as a freedom in society. Those of us who are old enough to remember different times remembers when, you know, there's things that are going on today that 50 years ago when we were in high school, no one would ever have imagined. You know, you just because that's how it works. Is that how many of you are stunned over, you know, we I was just talking with somebody yesterday about the amount of times F bombs are dropped in television shows now and how troublesome that is. That would never have gone on television when I was a kid, ever. It didn't have anything to do with my parents turning the TV off. It just would not have been allowed. Now, today, if a censor decides that something's not going to be allowed because the F-bomb's being used, they get mocked. And and sadly, they get mocked by people who call themselves Christians because they'll say, well, that's the way we are. That's the permeating effect of allowing people to just do what they think is right, even if it's fundamentally and principally wrong. And that's what's going on with these assisted suicide laws. I mean, it sounds great. So that's always the direction to go. And you've got to remember is that what's good in one area must become okay in another area for it to be consistently applied. And I encountered this with the topic of assisted suicide for the first time 35 years ago in Ontario. Because Ontario, when they were talking about assisted suicide, the argument was that if you allow people to kill themselves, then everyone should have the right to kill themselves, including minors. And why? Because minors really have constitutional rights. They're just exercised on their behalf by their parents or guardians. So you got to remember that when you open the door for this, there's a logical train of thought that has to follow, and people have to start waking up and following the train of thought.
SPEAKER_00:I saw a comment somewhere, can't remember exactly what where or what the context was, but it was basically saying, can we remove the idea of the slippery slope from the list of fallacies? And this is something I picked up on you know long ago when I first saw it listed as a fallacy. It's like okay, yeah, very often the argument of the slippery slope is is used in a fallacious way. But it is true in many cases, where you can establish that somebody said, hey, if you allow X, then Y is going to follow. And people say, no, no, no, no, we're only talking about X. And sure enough, Y followed X. And now you're saying Z is going to follow Y. No, no, no, no. Yes, it's going to happen. The slippery slope is something that we really do need to pay attention to. And it's not just a thing where, well, that's a slippery slope and you just get to, you know, uh dismiss it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:No, that's that's I mean, super true. Because like if you look at moral issues, social issues, you look like abortion, look at the history of abortion. When you read the congressional hearings in 1974 that were talking about the possibility of a human life amendment, the argument always was, well, if we knew that it was taking of life, you know, we would never terminate it. Well, of course, now everyone acknowledges, even the abortion rights advocates, that it is the taking of a life, and they argue that it should be permitted. That's how a slippery slope works. And so arguing against a slippery slope is oftentimes a smokescreen for wanting to change the moral foundation of how you function. And people have to decide, do I want to live in a society that way? And if you decide the answer is yes, because I do think we should allow them to to at least choose how they have their own demise, well then then all I'm going to challenge you to say is think it through logically. If this is true, can it possibly be applied to other areas? And if you say, well, no, no, we we won't let it do that, how are you going to stop it and logically defend your your stance?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, another um area too, with talking about assisted suicide is the the I guess the guy convicted of trying to assassinate Trump um at Maro Mar-a-Laga has has to be imprisoned in a place where he can legally kill himself. Well, interesting. Yeah, I have no idea.
SPEAKER_00:I I I rather suspect that the judge, because the sentencing is up to the judge, is that he is not going to agree to this, uh, or at least not in any explicit way. I mean, he he may end up just assigning him somewhere where it so happens that the assisted suicide or MEID um medical assistance in dying is is uh uh available. But it really is just it's just one of those things that makes you scratch your head and and and and and just sigh. The idea that you can escape your sentence by g and and and get out of suffering, which there's supposed to be suffering involved in a prison sentence, that's kind of the whole idea, uh, that you can just you know kind of check out from that by uh killing yourself or getting a s actually in his case he would be getting the state to help kill him. And I wonder how many people who are very much against capital punishment are gonna get tied up in knots by this. Because on the one hand, you know, okay, no, no, no, it's wrong for the government to kill prisoners, people who have been convicted of crimes, but if he wants to die, we should let the state facilitate that.
SPEAKER_01:It's just kind of gonna be kind of the state's doing that right now, facilitating the death of prisoners? No, no. No. Okay. Yeah. So he wants to be in a state that would let him do it in hopes that they would let him do it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I I wonder, and I don't know this for sure, but I wonder if this explains some of the reaction his daughter had in court. Remember when he was convicted, his daughter really kind of dismantled because I I think she just believes he's so like radically passionate that because when you read the whole account of his kind of philosophical approach, he wants to be offer himself as a for a prisoner exchange. Now, can you imagine what what are you gonna get for this guy? Part of what he did when I was reading about he was offering himself for a prisoner exchange too. Is so what is he trying to do? It's kind of like the end result of a godless life. If you don't live for glorifying God in all things, then you live for something you manufacture in your head. And one of the things he had manufactured in his head was, Well, I have determined what would be a good, and therefore I want to live for that. So at least let me accomplish that. You know, let me use me for a prisoner exchange, because that would be a good, you know. And if he can't let me do that, then put me in a state where you know my life can be terminated. And then, of course, I would imagine what he would do is he would express his desire for assistance and suicide, and then he would try to harm himself with the idea that if he wasn't successful in prison, that the state would finish the job. And again, follow the logic. The logic wouldn't hold up for it.
SPEAKER_01:Well, um, I promised Bob that we would get to this uh Japanese woman marrying her AI partner. Uh we had uh talked about I mean, maybe something kind of similar where somebody had had an AI girlfriend um or no, an AI boyfriend that was right, um uh an AI boyfriend. And so um, Bob, can you tell us what happened with the story?
SPEAKER_02:Well, it was it's uh in Japan, right? Yeah, Japan. Yep. In Japan, she she um uh she was in an ongoing relationship with someone uh and found the AI romance far more satisfying, you know. And and so she actually had like a um a wedding. Uh and you could you know, I I shared with with the team here an an X link on it. But it was just real I mean, she's like she's weeping like the bride, and she's uh makes these vows and found the found this AI manufacturing to be to her imagination. Now there's there's a lot. There's a lot more going on here. I I mean I stuck that in here because it just remember my axiom that I've used a l a number of times, and that is whatever sounds completely incredibly stupid today becomes status quo ten years from now. It just When I first read this, my reaction was identical to my reaction when I read that Jack Gavorkian had helped Janet Atkins kill herself. Nobody's gonna take this serious. This guy's a nut he's an anomaly and everything. Well, now look. And the same thing too. Krista's right, we've had stories of these romances, people committing suicide because they've not been satisfactory.
SPEAKER_01:I think, you know, the the thing about the AI is when you really start treating it like a person and trying to have a personal connection, getting that personal advice. Uh and that just seems to be where it kind of falls apart. I I think, you know, I mean, on on some level of it, we all crave that personal re relationship. And so it's like, okay, well, real people aren't doing it for me, so I have to find that in AI. And I mean, that was I mean, that just seems to be kind of the underlying thread in a lot of these stories.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and I'm not gonna say it's gonna be true in every instance. It's ironic that something that people are saying, oh well, um, I'm not getting what I need from real people, so I've got to get it from AI. That as much as they say it's about others, that that other person they need in their life, it's fundamentally self-centered. It's I don't want to have to do the work, make the sacrifices, be understanding and such with a real person. Um, I don't want to, you know, do whatever's required of me in order to make a relationship work. Instead, I'm gonna go for an AI person who's there's never gonna be any stress, any conflict or anything there, because that's what you know this AI is designed for. And it is a common criticism of the bridal complex, at least in the United States, and I'm sure it's true in many other parts of the world, where what is supposed to be a a joyous occasion about the union of husband and wife and the beginning of a long marriage becomes a day for the bride to be all about her, you know, very self-centered. And wow, what could be more self-centered now than a bride saying, I don't even need the groom? Yeah, it's just gonna be all me. And the sad thing, the the clip here showed the the wedding ceremony. As far as I could tell, there was no one present there who was not either the bride or employed by this wedding chapel.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:You know, there were no family members, no friends, nobody. I mean, and and she's getting what she wanted. It was all about her. And uh, you know, it's not so much that I want to, you know, pile on this this woman, it's more just what this is indicative of. And as Bob is saying, you know, it it seems outlandish now, outrageous, but uh on the course we're heading, you know, as a society, uh it we shouldn't be surprised if this becomes much more mainstream um very soon.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think too, you know, and it you're really when you you're really on to something there, Jeff. Like with um just with talking about how we we manufacture what we want like in relationships too, because yes, I mean I think sometimes it's like okay, when you have a relationship with a real person, it's not always I mean, it's never perfect. And there are things that are wrong or things you don't like about them or or things that they say, and that you know, and I I always think too that even just it's it's such a blessing too, in many ways, that God is in control of my life and that I'm not. I I mean there's just something really neat with with God being in control of our lives, and then this is really us being in control of our life.
SPEAKER_02:Well, and let me do one little teaser, and that is for next month's news, uh, we're gonna we're gonna talk about uh uh creating a relationship with somebody near the end of their life and what that means to have it connect uh a generation or two down the road. Uh there's uh I just read the story this morning out of coming out of AI. So you have grandma uh talking to your grandchild, your grandma talking to your grandchild 30, 40 years later, long after your grandma has died. And it's all it's a new company that's uh integrating this into it. I mean, there there's all of these very controversial things of of what Jeff is pointing out to substituting human relationships with something else. Now, by the way, when I first read this story, I all I could think of was a number of years ago there was a woman, I thought it was in New York, that was petitioning for the right to marry her dog. Because she her argument was my dog has been a better companion than my husband. This is the way people are thinking nowadays. Again, it sounds crazy, and then you watch.
SPEAKER_00:Uh kind of a side issue here, away from the AI, is just the reason we have so-called same-sex marriage is because people have completely forgotten what marriage is supposed to be, how to properly define it. And in a case like this, that that really shows it's like, no, it's not just about somebody who fulfills you, it's not about having a just about having a companion. There, there's a lot more to what marriage is. And and it's not just a Christian definition. It is the longtime societal definition of what marriage is uh that uh should be telling people, whoa, this is dumb. Yeah, this is not right. But um we passed that point a long time ago.
SPEAKER_02:You know, just just the way we looked at this topic, these are suicide topics and so forth. I d I would imagine some of you listening to this are going, yeah, okay, well, that doesn't interest me. That doesn't you gotta How could it not? Yeah, but that's what I mean. You've got to have you've gotta have a deeper than thimbleful sense of concern about where things are going, because this is all alarming. I mean, they when you think about it, that's you've got countries like South Korea, which they're projecting like a generation and a half down the road, they go out of existence because they're not procreating, they're not having children there and people are surrendering. I mean, walk through any airport when you're when you're traveling and watch how many people are glued to their phones and so forth. Diane and I used to go out for for dinner, and we used to talk about the number of people who were doing one of two things. Either they were both they're both sitting at the table going through their phones, or they were not saying a word to each other because they've lost touch. And the interactivity of humans is a crucial and critical component for God's plan for the human race.
SPEAKER_01:Aaron Powell And I think people do want connection, but it just I mean, they're they're gonna get it in other place places. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_02:See, because we haven't conditioned people to handle disappointment. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Well, yes, uh save this episode then for ten years in the future when all of this doesn't seem as maybe as ridiculous or as far-fetched as it does now, too. Thank you both for the discussion today, and we thank all of our listeners too. And if you have any questions on this topic or um any others, you feel free to reach us at lifechallenges.us. Thanks a lot. Bye.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you for joining us for the Life Challenges Podcast from Christian Life Resources. Please consider subscribing to this podcast, giving us a review wherever you access it, and sharing it with friends. We're here to help. So if you have questions on today's topic or other life issues, you can submit them as well as comments or suggestions for future episodes at lifechallenges.us, or email us at podcast at ChristianLiferesources.com. You can find past episodes and other valuable information at lifechallenges.us, so please check it out. For more about our parent organization, please visit Christianliferesources.com. May God give you wisdom, love, strength, and peace in Christ for every life challenge.
