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Religious issues with euthanasia
Is religion relevant to euthanasia today
How Christians are to respond to the ethical issue of euthanasia
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God gave us human life as a sign that he loves us, and as a gift for us, so committing assisted suicide is practically telling God that we didn’t like his gift. Have you ever given a gift to someone, and they tried to put on a thankful face, but you could tell that it wasn’t their favorite? Well that is kind of what we are doing to God when we commit assisted suicide. We are telling him that His gift isn’t the greatest gift that we have received, and we are giving it back to Him. Imagine that you gave someone a gift, and when they saw what it was, they said that they didn’t want it and handed it right back to you. That would make you feel bad, wouldn’t it? Well how do you think God feels when we give Him back the most beautiful gift that He
¨ If I cannot give my consent to my own death, whose body is this? Who owns my life?- Sue Rodriguez. If one cannot choose when they die and how they go out, then are we really the owner of our life and body? Physician assisted suicide is the practice of providing a competent patient with a prescription for medication for the patient to use with the primary intention of ending his or her own life. When the patient is terminally ill and is in a lot of pain they should be able to end their own life instead of waiting for it to end itself. Even though some argue that physician assisted suicide is not a humane way of dying it still stops the patient´s suffering and gives them peace of mind.
Assisted suicide should be legalized nationwide in the United States, because every human deserves a peaceful death. Assisted suicide is when person that has been told they are terminally ill and won’t survive, they can go to a doctor and get prescribed a medication that results in death. It’s not murder, it’s giving the person a chance to say their good byes and leave this world when they are ready to go. Not making them suffer and go on when they don’t want to.
Intro: The Hippocratic Oath clearly states, “I will not give a drug that is deadly to anyone if asked [for it], nor will I suggest the way to such counsel.”Steven Miles, a professor at the University of Minnesota Medical School published an article, “The Hippocratic Oath,” expressing that doctors must uphold the standards of the Hippocratic Oath to modern relevance. Euthanasia continues as a controversial policy issue. Providing resourceful information allows us to recognize what is in the best interest for patients and doctors alike. Today, I will convince you that physician-assisted suicide should be illegal. The United States must implement a policy stopping the usage of euthanasia for the terminally ill. I will provide knowledge of
"If suicide is a right, then it is one that has remained undiscovered throughout the ages by the great thinkers in law, ethics, philosophy and theology. It appears nowhere in the Bible or the Koran or the Talmud. Committing suicide wasn't a "right" a thousand years ago, and it isn't one now. That's why most societies, including our own, have passed laws against it" (Callahan, pg. 71). Assisted suicide is murder!
Imagine your laying in a hospital bed hooked up to various machines. The doctors and nurses are persistently coming in to check up on you while you’re trying to get through the pain, weakness and slow wasting away of your body. On top of that you are grieving the side effects from numerous drugs, constipation, restlessness, you can barely breathe. You have no appetite because you are constantly throwing up. The doctors have given you little to no chance of survival; and death is at hand, it is just a matter of when. You have said your goodbyes, you have come to terms with dying and you are ready to meet your creator. Now if you had the chance to choose how and when your life ended would you take advantage of it?
Imagine yourself laying on your deathbed, hooked up to countless machines. The doctors are constantly coming to check you while you're trying to get what little sleep you can through the agonizing pain. Even more you're suffering from the side effects of countless drugs, constipation, delirium, you can barely breathe and you've lost all your appetite. There no chance of survival and death is imminent, it's just a matter of time when. You just lay there fighting for your last seconds. Now, if you had the chance to choose how your life ended, wouldn't you choose how and when it ends? Hence, doctor assisted suicide should be a legal option for terminally ill patients. This is a humane way for them to end their lives with dignity, without shame and suffering. We don't have the freedom of speech unless we have the freedom to refuse to speak. The same goes for our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, we can't have complete freedom unless we have the freedom to deny these things. We can't claim full control over our life if we cannot choose when to end it. Thus, people should be given the right to assisted suicide in order to end their unnecessary suffering, to preserve the individual right of people to determine their own fate, and to reduce the burden on their families both, financially and emotionally.
God does. That being said, this argument does not hold. God is caring and selfless. He/She does not want us living a life in agony. That would be evil and not in our best interest. God, being the ruler of all, would want what is best for us. Assuming that God wants what is in our best interest, He/She would allow the use of euthanasia if it is in our best interest.
“Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window […] the variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames.” This was said by American author David Foster Wallace who died by suicide in September of 2008. Most people do not want to die, dying is absolutely terrifying but for some, it becomes a choice between leaping out the window and sailing down to a quick death at your own hands and getting caught in the building and waiting for the
"People are stewards, not owners, of the life God has entrusted to them" (Vaticana, 550). To decide if euthanasia is wrong, one must first decide whom life belongs to. The Bible says, "In God's hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind" (Job 12:10). Life belongs to God and since God gave life to the human race, God should decide when it is time to take life. Also, the fifth commandment says, "Thou shall not kill." Assisted suicide and euthanasia disobey this commandment.
The person has waived their right to life by consenting to suicide, there is no fear that would be caused if only those who are terminally ill and consent are killed, and the grief is inevitable anyways as death is imminent. They go on further to make an analogy with starving children [1]. This analogy does not hold, as the reason that assisted suicide is pursued is to relieve suffering, and is unrelated to the “value” that human life has. Finally, they argue that allowing assisted suicide will cause people to be pressured into committing suicide [1].
...with as we see fit. To kill oneself, or to get someone else to do it for us, is to deny God, and to deny God's rights over our lives and his right to choose the length of our lives and the way our lives end”. ("BBC - Ethics - Introduction to ethics: Euthanasia.") Taking one’s life would equate to playing God. The right to decide whether you live or not does not belong to humans. God created humans and therefore taking one’s life is tantamount to playing God.
In Andre and Velasquez’s article, they argue that assisted suicide is both right and wrong, which can be justified. Using deontology, they state that humans have the duty to eliminate the sufferings of fellow humans and to respect their dignity (Andre, and Velazquez). They explain that assisted suicide is a dignified way to die in order to preserve dignity and end suffering. The ones dying and are in need of assistance to die are “afflicted with excruciatingly painful and terminal conditions and diseases that have left them permanently incapable of functioning in any dignified human fashion. They can only look forward to lives filled with yet more suffering, degradation, and deterioration. When such people beg for a merciful end to their pain and indignity, it is cruel and inhumane to refuse their pleas” (Andre, and Velasquez). It is cruel and inhumane to ignore people who are suffering and need assistance to end that suffering. They do not want to continue living in ...
Perplexing questions from why the person choose this, what caused them to think this way, and how did life get that unbearable? The families and friends involved are extremely depressed over the death of someone they cared about that took their own life. Regular suicide is dying on one's own terms, and whether people choose to believe the same of assisted suicide, it’s the basis of their entire argument. The definition of suicide is when someone voluntarily and intentionally takes their own life. Assisted suicide is that same definition alongside of a doctor.
The right to life has been a subject of controversy for decades. We can mention it when we talk about abortion, the death penalty, and simply by a natural process we allow such as the simple act of natural birth of a baby. Whether a life is worth living? and whether to assist the act to end a life? Has been one of the most controversial subjects among the religious communities and the society. According to the Louis Finkelstein Institute for Religious and Social Studies reported on its website in the document "Physician-Assisted Suicide Survey," (accessed on Oct. 27, 2006), "Religious identity correlates with attitudes toward the ethical status of assisting in suicide. Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox Jews believe in the majority that it
any person who has no job and so drains on society, any person who has