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

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.

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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