Euthanasia Essay - Lutheranism and Doctor-Assisted Suicide

1504 Words4 Pages

Evangelical Lutheranism and Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide

As a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, I feel it important to express in this essay the stand of the church on the question of euthanasia and assisted suicide. Our church has strong biblical and traditional reasons for adamantly opposing these new end-of-life approaches.

Increasingly, people know from their own experience some painful dilemmas involving elderly or handicapped individuals who are in pain. While the achievements of modern medicine have been used to prolong and enhance life for many, they have also helped create an often dreaded context for dying. Costly technology may keep persons alive, but frequently these persons are cut off from meaningful relationships with others and exist with little or no hope for recovery. Many fearfully imagine a situation at the end of their lives where they or their trusted ones will have no say in decisions about their treatment.

In this context, new emphasis is being placed on the rights of patients. Recent federal legislation, for example, requires all health care facilities receiving Medicare or Medicaid monies to inform patients of their right to make medical treatment decisions. This includes the right to specify "advance directives," [1] which state what patients wish to be done in case they are no longer able to communicate adequately.

We consider the legislation consistent with the principle that "respect for that person [who is capable of participating] mandates that he or she be recognized as the prime decision-maker" in treatment. [2] The patient is a person in relationship, not an isolated individual. Her or his decisions should take others into account and be made in supportive consultation with family members, close friends, pastor, and health care professionals. Christians face end-of-life decisions in all their ambiguity, knowing we are responsible ultimately to God, whose grace comforts, forgives, and frees us in our dilemmas.

Which decisions about dying are morally acceptable to concernd Christians, and which ones go beyond morally acceptable limits? Which medical practices and public policies allow for more humane treatment for those who are dying and which ones open the door to abuse and the violation of human dignity? Proposals in various states to legalize physician-assisted death [3] point to renewed interest in these old questions. ELCA members, congregations, and institutions need to address these questions through prayer and careful reflection.

Show More
Related

  • Summary: Why The North Won The Civil War

    999 Words  | 2 Pages

    The North entered the Civil War with many distinct assets that rendered them more competent than the Southern states. Those assets consisted of having more men, more financial stability, economic strength, and far reaching transportation systems. According to the book: Why the North Won the Civil War by Donald, David Herbert, and Richard Nelson the primary cause to the North’s success was given by, “the vast superiority of the North in men and materials, in instruments of production, in communication facilities, in business organization and skill – and assuming for the sake of the argument no more than rough quality in statecraft and generalship – the final outcome seems all but inevitable.” In many ways the north, during the Civil, was more economically dominant than the South

    Read More

  • Ethical Issues Of Euthanasia

    1581 Words  | 4 Pages

    However it can also make room for medical, legal and ethical dilemmas. Advances in medical technology enable individuals to delay the inevitable fate of death, overcome cancer, diabetes, and various traumatic injuries. Our advances in medical technologies now allow these individuals to do things on their own terms. The “terminally ill” state is described as having an incurable or irreversible condition that has a high probability of causing death within a relatively short time with or without treatment (Guest, p.3, 1998). A wide range of degenerative diseases can fall into either category, ranging from, HIV/AIDS, Alzheimer’s disease and many forms of cancer. This control, however, lays assistance, whether direct or indirect, from a

    Read More

  • Was Northern Victory in the Civil War Inevitable?

    615 Words  | 2 Pages

    Several factors played in to the American Civil War that made it have the outcome that it did. Although the South had better trained officials due to their military school, the North was far more advanced than they. The North had the advantage over the South in several ways. However, the outcome of the Civil War was not inevitable: it was determined as much by human decisions and human willpower as by physical resources, although the North’s resources gave them an edge over the South.

    Read More

  • Ancient Slavery: Death Senetence or Life Opportunity?

    547 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Aristotle's "Justifying Slavery" and Seneca's "On Master and Slave," the two authors express their opposing sentiments on the principles of slavery. While Aristotle describes slavery as predestined inferiority, evidenced greatly by physical attributes, Seneca emphasizes the importance of "philosophical" freedom as opposed to physical freedom. (p. 58). The authors' contrasting views are disclosed in their judgments on the morality of slavery, the degree of freedom all people possess at birth, and the balance of equality between a slave and his master.

    Read More

  • Why The North Won The Civil War Analysis

    1274 Words  | 3 Pages

    Why the North Won the Civil War, edited by David Herbert Donald, is a short collection of six essays. Each essay argues from a different perspective as to why the Confederate States of America could not defeat the Union in the American Civil War. The factors considered for Confederate defeat include: economics, military strategy, diplomacy, ideology, and politics. In the end, the most convincing argument is given by Richard N. Current regarding economics.

    Read More

  • Civil War and The South's Loss

    1824 Words  | 4 Pages

    “Why did the North win the Civil War?” is only half of a question by itself, for the other half is “Why did the South lose the Civil War?” To this day historians have tried to put their finger on the exact reason for the South losing the war. Some historians blame the head of the confederacy Jefferson Davis; however others believe that it was the shear numbers of the Union (North). The advantages and disadvantages are abundant on either sides of the argument, but the most dominate arguments on why the South lost the war would be the fact that state’s rights prevented unification of the South, Jefferson Davis' poor leadership and his failure to work together with his generals, the South failed to gain the recognition of the European nations, North's superior resources made the outcome inevitable, and moral of the South towards the end of the war.

    Read More

  • Anne Hutchingson and Freeborn Garrettson

    1197 Words  | 3 Pages

    In 1637, Anne Hutchinson stood trial before the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. During her examination, she confessed that she had experienced an “immediate revelation” from God. She described hearing “the voice of his own spirit to my soul.” After discussion with authorities, John Winthrop concluded that “…this is the thing that hath been the root of all the mischief.” She was found guilty and banished from the colony.

    Read More

  • The Complications Of Euthanasia In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

    1217 Words  | 3 Pages

    Societies frequently reject the use of euthanasia because of the way in which it violates ethics. This is a major concern in the field of religion; along with other religions and religious leaders, Willem Velema of the Orthodox Protestant Church was “fiercely opposed” to the idea of euthanizing (Boer). From a religious standpoint, this procedure is wrong because patients and their families can act as God by determining time of death. Religion teaches that God keeps His children on the earth for a reason. After all, God puts certain obstacles in one’s life in order to make them stronger; resorting to death is a sign of weakness. Euthanasia is also opposed by many because of the way people take advantage of it. In Belgium, where Euthanization is legal, the number of medically induced deaths “has been going up” tremendously (Boer). In fact, “it has increased by an average of 15% a year” since 2006 (Boer). As numbers increase, citizens become desensitized to the idea, therefore, viewing it as a viable option in the face of pain.

    Read More

  • Anne Hutchinson Research Paper

    2035 Words  | 5 Pages

    Anne Hutchinson was born in Alford, Lincolnshire, England, and was the daughter of Bridget Dryden and Francis Marbury. Anne was the second daughter out of thirteen children, and so quickly learned the use of herbal medicines and developed a talent for domestic leadership. Francis Marbury was the dissenting Anglican Clergyman, and so she learned theology and about conscientious dissent from him. Her family later moved to London, where Anne met a merchant named William Hutchinson. Anne and William married in 1612 and they moved back to Alford.

    Read More

  • Physician Assisted Suicide Essay

    2048 Words  | 5 Pages

    There is great debate in this country and worldwide over whether or not terminally ill patients who are experiencing great suffering should have the right to choose death. A deep divide amongst the American public exists on the issue. It is extremely important to reach an ethical decision on whether or not terminally ill patients have this right to choose death, since many may be needlessly suffering, if an ethical solution exists.

    Read More

  • Euthanasia Essay: Assisted Suicide

    925 Words  | 2 Pages

    In her paper entitled "Euthanasia," Phillipa Foot notes that euthanasia should be thought of as "inducing or otherwise opting for death for the sake of the one who is to die" (MI, 8). In Moral Matters, Jan Narveson argues, successfully I think, that given moral grounds for suicide, voluntary euthanasia is morally acceptable (at least, in principle). Daniel Callahan, on the other hand, in his "When Self-Determination Runs Amok," counters that the traditional pro-(active) euthanasia arguments concerning self-determination, the distinction between killing and allowing to die, and the skepticism about harmful consequences for society, are flawed. I do not think Callahan's reasoning establishes that euthanasia is indeed morally wrong and legally impossible, and I will attempt to show that.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Anne Bradstreet To My Dear Children

    1550 Words  | 4 Pages

    She admits that she suffers through internal conflicts regarding her religious beliefs multiple times in “To My Dear Children”, even explicitly stating “I have argued thus with myself” (Bradstreet 164). Her struggle with what to believe was so great that she nearly abandons her original goal of writing to her children. This letter starts off addressing her children directly, but after the first paragraph she does not write in second person, with one exception, until the conclusion. Bradstreet instead writes the entire middle section about the issues she faced in her lifetime regarding her religion and how she overcame these problems. This gives great perspective into the mindset of all of her neighbors in Massachusetts as well. The “city upon a hill” (Winthrop 149) that John Winthrop told the Puritans they could create was not a perfect utopia even though they were finally free from the oppression of the Catholic Church. Doubts about whether God was truly on their side ensued as the Puritans discovered how laborious it was to live on the land and away from the luxury they were accustomed to in Europe. They began to question their own beliefs, just as Anne Bradstreet did. She presents these doubts in her letter and provides an understanding as to how this was not the perfect society it was meant to be. She also defends all of her doubts with

    Read More

  • Essay On End Of Life Care Plan

    1361 Words  | 3 Pages

    The care of patients at the end of their live should be as humane and respectful to help them cope with the accompanying prognosis of the end of their lives. The reality of this situation is that all too often, the care a patient receives at the end of their life is quite different and generally not performed well. The healthcare system of the United States does not perform well within the scope of providing the patient with by all means a distress and pain free palliative or hospice care plan. To often patients do not have a specific plan implemented on how they wish to have their end of life care carried out for them. End of life decisions are frequently left to the decision of family member's or physicians who may not know what the patient needs are beforehand or is not acting in the patient's best wishes. This places the unenviable task of choosing care for the patient instead of the patient having a carefully written out plan on how to carry out their final days. A strategy that can improve the rate of care that patients receive and improve the healthcare system in general would be to have the patient create a end of life care plan with their primary care physician one to two years prior to when the physician feels that the patient is near the end of their life. This would put the decision making power on the patient and it would improve the quality of care the patient receives when they are at the end of their life. By developing a specific care plan, the patient would be in control of their wishes on how they would like their care to be handled when the time of death nears. We can identify strengths and weakness with this strategy and implement changes to the strategy to improve the overall system of care with...

    Read More

  • Ethics of Euthanasia

    1466 Words  | 3 Pages

    As patients come closer to the end of their lives, certain organs stop performing as well as they use to. People are unable to do simple tasks like putting on clothes, going to the restroom without assistance, eat on our own, and sometimes even breathe without the help of a machine. Needing to depend on someone for everything suddenly brings feelings of helplessness much like an infant feels. It is easy to see why some patients with terminal illnesses would seek any type of relief from this hardship, even if that relief is suicide. Euthanasia or assisted suicide is where a physician would give a patient an aid in dying. “Assisted suicide is a controversial medical and ethical issue based on the question of whether, in certain situations, Medical practioners should be allowed to help patients actively determine the time and circumstances of their death” (Lee). “Arguments for and against assisted suicide (sometimes called the “right to die” debate) are complicated by the fact that they come from very many different points of view: medical issues, ethical issues, legal issues, religious issues, and social issues all play a part in shaping people’s opinions on the subject” (Lee). Euthanasia should not be legalized because it is considered murder, it goes against physicians’ Hippocratic Oath, violates the Controlled

    Read More

  • Key Factors That Led to Union Victory in the Civil War

    2114 Words  | 5 Pages

    The Civil War that took place in the United States from 1861 to 1865 could have easily swung either way at several points during the conflict. There is however several reasons that the North would emerge victorious from this bloody war that pit brother against brother. Some of the main contributing factors are superior industrial capabilities, more efficient logistical support, greater naval power, and a largely lopsided population in favor of the Union. Also one of the advantages the Union had was that of an experienced government, an advantage that very well might have been one of the greatest contributing factors to their success. There are many reasons factors that lead to the North's victory, and each of these elements in and amongst themselves was extremely vital to the effectiveness of the Northern military forces. Had any one of these factors not been in place the outcome of the war could have been significantly different, and the United States as we know it today could be quite a different place to live.

    Read More

More about Euthanasia Essay - Lutheranism and Doctor-Assisted Suicide

Open Document