Euthanasia, to let die? Or to kill?

Pats said:

In my mind, letting some one who is ill pass by not artificially supporting their life is a different matter than euthanisation.

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Especially if he/she is not asking for help then I agree. There can be many variants, but basically I agree, quite naturally. There is a clear difference.

Euthanisation is the act of administering something that ends life.

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Yes. No honest proponent of euthanasia will deny that, just as no honest and well-informed proponent of abortion denies that it entails taking a human life. It's murder. Even if the person asks for it, it's murder, because it's not about what we think as humans. It's prohibited by the ten commandments that Jesus Christ himself taught us to abide by.

So it's very simple. Let the world debate all it wants.

Pats said:

I think you are boiling it down to something more simple than it is, perhaps.

For instance, assisted scuicide? People begging to die? That's murder?

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Suicide is also murder, yes, by God's standards as revealed by Jesus Christ, that is. I'm not simplifying anything, but you complicate things if you confound Christ's teachings with the laws of your country, which is a completely different thing.

Pats said:

Legality is not my issue here. Considering, the legal issue in my country is that it's not legal, anyway.

Where in Christ's teachings? I'm not trying to be contrary here.

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In the Gospel, which is in the New Testament of the Scripture.

Grace is about restored relationship with God. It's focuses are first restored relationship but also forgiveness, healing and on a whole, is about life. Because of grace the sting of death, which is sin, has been defeated.

Sin is about separation from God, it's focuses are about pain and suffering, sickness and disease and on a whole, is about death. Because of sin our bodies will die and are continually degenerating.

It is irresponsible of us to assume that grace and sin are only a spiritual battle but instead they are a very real physical battle as well. I know focusing on life alone will not assume grace but as recipients of grace we need to recognize grace's focus. Life does not define us instead God defines life but we can love God as we focus on life over death and grace over sin.

So I will choose life over death because I choose grace over sin.

Well Im going to come at this from a different angle and I accept I may be wrong in what I am going to say.

Pats said:

In my mind, letting some one who is ill pass by not artificially supporting their life is a different matter than euthanisation.

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Thats generally called passive euthanasia I think and also tends to include removing current treatment too.

Euthanisation is the act of administering something that ends life. Is it a release from this life into the next? Or is it to kill our neighbor? That's the biggest question of them all.

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Well it really depends the choice of the person being euthanized and state of that person. Euthanasia is more complex that one single type of it.

In my opinion it can be the right and most loving thing to do in some situations.

We should ask why it is wrong to kill someone. A lot of christians will just point to the 10 commandments and shout very loud. Although I don't think God chooses when we die I don't particularly want to prove it because it might be a very sad fact for some.

What I will say though is that the whole of the law is based on loving God and loving others. This means the reason it is wrong to kill someone is because it isn't wanting the best for them normally and as well as this to love someone means to respect their free will too. This high value of people gives us the right to life, but this right can be given up in the same way you can give up the right to not have you property destroyed.

Just some basic points there for now

Pats said:

Spoken like a person who has never dealt with a terminally ill person.

Any body out there wanna have a real discussion on this matter??? Or, no, in wich case, I'll drop it.

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do not assume what you know about me. Certainly there are an infinite amount of situations that are very complex and cannot be answered by a simple yes or no. I do not pretend to know the answers to all these situations however I do know I value life more than I value death and I will defend life before I defend death. As mentioned in my earlier post my reasons are defined through the inherent choice that grace takes on life and in turn the inherent choice sin takes on death.

It is impossible to really express the complexity of this and what most people are looking for is the slightest angle to promote their perspective basically turning everything to a subjective argument that is based on the most extreme examples. My personal experiences are pointless because no matter what I have gone through someone has gone through something more difficult even if it is only on the hypothetical and so my own experience can always be trumped by someone else.

So this is why all I can say is that I will always fight for life over death but in the same way I will also always pray about everything and surrender everything into God's will even if that surrender is life itself. How will this translate into "x" situation? I don't know but if a blanket statement is what you want then I will choose life over death. If you agree that a blanket statement is too limiting to cover everything then the focus needs to be about how we come to the answer not the answer itself. In all things we need to surrender our limited concept unto God and allow God to work through us and accomplish his will. I don't know what the surrender will look like or the outcome but if sincerely done whatever the answer is it will be about a focus on God instead of our limited perspective on life which the original question of this post exposes.

I've not had to think about this topic for personal application.
I did spend a little time trying to understand it a little when Dr Death was doing his thing.
Its clear to me that one can be killed early. In the same way with mordern technology can keep people alive beyond what a normal would do. So have this simplistic view that we shouldn't prematurely kill someone and we shouldn't force someone to stay alive either.

dayhiker

JESUS<3sYOU said:

In the Gospel, which is in the New Testament of the Scripture.

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Apparently "thou shalt not euthanize" was in the footnotes?

Jesus Christ taught his followers to keep the ten commandments. He did so not just once but many times. As for the sophistries of Biblicalists, I couldn't care less. I'm a Christian.

Pats said:

Well, in my mind, this is a highly controversial and relevant subject.

To euthanise a human being is a big debate in the US, possibly globally.

In my mind, letting some one who is ill pass by not artificially supporting their life is a different matter than euthanisation.

Euthanisation is the act of administering something that ends life. Is it a release from this life into the next? Or is it to kill our neighbor? That's the biggest question of them all.

Discuss please.

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Depends on how you look at death. Do you mourn or celebrate a person's passing?

The really difficult point to define is when does prolonging life really become prolonging death?

Here in the USA there are some groups who insist that unless we 'hook up' a dying person (or even a person who is already known to be brain-dead) to machines which are capable of keeping him biologically alive, we have committed euthanasia. These groups have also insisted that this be done even if the patient has expressed beforehand through documents such as The Living Will that he does not want this artificial extension of life, which can be more accurately called an artificial extension of dying.

My grandmother was diagnosed as having cancer in 1972. She was 85 years old at the time. But instead of making her comfortable, her daughter (my mother) was talked into permitting a young doctor to perform major surgery on her. "I can save her life," he boasted, and then for all intents and purposes eviscerated her. The reality was that he exchanged a relatively peaceful death for a death where she only stopped screaming from the pain when she was given the maximum amount of morphine allowed. She 'lived' for another 3 years, the last 6 months of which she was 'hooked up' to an artificial respirator. She finally died in 1975, at the age of 88.

On April 15,2008, my wife died here at home. She had been watching TV (she enjoyed watching 'TVLand' late at night) and appeared at first to simply have fallen asleep, which she was prone to do. It was only when she failed to respond to my voice that I sensed something was wrong. Then I touched her and realized that her body was in full rigor. When the police officer who was required to investigate her death called her doctor to see whether she could tell him what my wife had died of, the answer was cancer.

Two people, seperated by 33 years, had died of basically the same type of cancer (Ovarian). But one had died 'hooked up' to machines, while the other one died while watching her favorite TV shows. What does that tell you?

God bless-

That's a good story, Harry. Thanks for sharing, I appreciated it. Some people such as those you mentioned first in your post don't know how to distinguish between directly causing someone's death and allowing someone to die unharassed when the course is run, but those are separate issues and the latter problem does not undo the former. So really, the problem of euthanasia understood as directly causing someone's death remains and my position on it is unchanged (naturally).

Take care.