Physican Assisted Suicied
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Death in the Hands of Whom
Should an individual be allowed to choose assisted suicide with the help of a physician, or be forced to follow their theological beliefs of the dominant religion they practice when life seems pointless? The choice of whether to live or not live is directly influenced by the decision to indulge in a process characterized as “physician assisted suicide” or simply called Euthanasia. Many people believe it is solely left upon God to determine when death should occur, but some people believe that a doctor has the right to take their life and help the patient destroy it. In this paper I will be discussing what euthanasia is, how it affects the patients life, and the implication it has on the religious community as an unmoral act.
One may wonder why in the end to choose euthanasia as a means to deliberately end their life. Some individuals live in excessive chronic pain, some due to poverty or lack of health-care coverage and cannot afford pain-killing medication. Others are denied adequate painkillers because of their physicians lack of knowledge and or inadequate training. They have a terminal illness where disease has adversely affected their quality of life to the point where they no longer wish to continue living. Some have lost their independence and must be cared for continually or simply they realize that they will be dying in the near future and simply want to have total control over the process. But whatever the case may be, the people who decide to commit suicide are unable to accomplish the act alone. They need assistance from their physician to assist the suicide and help them die under conditions in which they wish.
Euthanasia includes the Passive and Active action of death. Passive Euthanasia can be defined as the hastening death of a person by altering some form of support and letting nature take its course. This can happen either by removing life support equipment, stopping medical procedures, stopping food and water and allowing the person to dehydrate or starve to death. The most common form of passive euthanasia is to give patients large doses of morphine to control pain. Such doses of these painkillers have a dual effect of relieving pain and hastening death and are mostly performed on terminally ill people in a persistent vegetative state.
Another type of euthanasia is Active Euthanasia, which causes the death of a person through a direct action, in response to a request from that person. A physician supplies information and or the means of committing suicide by either prescription for lethal dose of sleeping pills, or a supply of carbon monoxide gas to a person, so that they can easily terminate their own life.
PAS is currently legal, under severe restrictions, but only in the American state of Oregon and in the Netherlands, in other jurisdictions, they are forced to continue living against their wish, until their body eventually collapses, or until a family member or friend commits a criminal act by helping them commit suicide. According to the International Task Force, an international leader in the ever-increasing debate over assisted suicide and euthanasia. Since 1998 to 2004, a total of 208 people have died from assisted suicide, 37 cases just along in the year 2004.
Euthanasia is not only wrong, but it goes beyond respecting the morality of an individuals life. When human beings are aware and conscience of a moral decision in their life either the intention, the act itself, or circumstances that individual is responsible regardless. In every day life, human beings have the underlying ability to choose good and avoid evil because as Christians, we have a moral duty to God, the creator to abide by Christianity. The innocent killing of human beings prescribed by physician known as Euthanasia, to end a persons life in not only unmoral but goes against Gods Plan for us. Whether we acknowledge the fact that God is the source of all things uniting the world and human nature, he absolutely is.
Natural Law is the moral knowledge accessible to anyone of good will who reflects upon human experience the gift of the creator who places that law within us. Natural law is undistinguishable from life because the two are forever intertwined together and it is the reality of moral values being good, bad, right, or wrong. The reality of Euthanasia is beyond being bad or wrong, and for that reason it affects the basis of our human dignity. God created us in the divine image of himself in our ability to have freedom, rationality, and capacity for personal relationships. In choosing to do evil and avoid good we are indirectly going against God, our Natural Law. Our unawareness of personal responsibility, the general sense of what are proper values, the ability to exercise correct moral reasoning, and the casuistry of the situation determine how we live our life.
In the bible, “You shall not murder” is a commandment that specifically goes against the belief that life is a gift. We live in the age of human rights, although if there is no God and no transcendent source of values it is very difficult to see upon what basis an appeal to rights can be made. “Ask now about the former days, long before your time, from the day God created man on the earth.” God was not obliged to create us, he did so as an expression of his nature, his grace. Back in Genesis 2:7, “It is God who forms man from the dust of the earth and breathes into man the breath of life.” Adam the gift of life, and human beings are made in Gods image, whereupon murder is considered a particularly horrific irreversible crime. In Genesis 9:6, God instituted capital punishment, which stated, “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God, God has made man.”
The belief life is on loan is focused for us from the book of Job 1:21, “Naked I came from my mothers womb and naked I shall depart. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord.” Life is on a loan reminds people who it is they are dealing with. God is sovereign and such life is not only a gift, which he chooses to give or withdraw as he wills, but also a gift that is on loan. It is not our absolute possession to do with as we see fit, but a gift to be treasured as God has decreed.
Furthermore, life is to be seen as a great blessing and death is to be seen as an intrusion into Gods good world brought about by sin. Certainly, this is more than