Your feelings regarding human euthanasia?

Question

When does a persons quality of life superceede a religious belief?
Do you feel a person should suffer and then die when it's their time?

We put our pets out of misery when they are in pain.
Why not do that for others that are suffering.....they can't eat, sleep, or even think clearly because of the pain.

Answer 1

Hedda,

You ask a good question! I recently wrote an article on the same exact topic, and make some of the same points you make. When we put our pets 'to sleep', we say it's 'humane', but when the same suffering is incurred on the part of humans, we regard it as a mortal sin. Religious, or holier than thou nutcases condemn this 'humane' act and believe the person involved is banished to hell in the hereafter. (See Terri Schiavo!)

I know that if I were suffering, I'd surely consider ending it myself. (There's a good movie called "It's My Party", with Eric Roberts that deals with this issue.)

Here's a link to my article, in case you're interested:

Is Suicide a Personal Right?

http://www.helium.com/tm/724265/about-months-sixteen-started

Answer 2

If I were ever paralyzed or anything like that, I would want to be put to sleep. For me, life is being able to spend time with your family at a park under the warm sun, or just going out to see a movie with a friend on a rainy evening. Life should be more than just a room, and a bed, and not being able to do anything you want -- such as telling your family that you love them. To me, that would be hell -- that would be suffering. I would choose death over years and years of paralyzation any day.

And if you're a religious person that believes in God, then why not let your loved one(s) pass on already? End their suffering and send them to God where they can finally be in peace. Why keep them here? Why keep them in pain, when Heaven is so much greater?

In my family, we have all discussed this, and everyone except my dad would choose to be put out of our misery. If you haven't discussed this with your family, I suggest you should, because you never know.

Answer 3

Euthanasia is murder. The Fifth Commandment is: Thou shalt not kill !!
Only God knows what hour He commeth. Our pets are not human. Difference between animals and people. It is sad though, to be told that our sweet , pet needs to be put to sleep. Most people, upon their death beds, go into a deep, deep sleep. So they don't suffer. But I have often wondered about people who do not know God. I wonder if they do suffer ? While in their deep , deep sleep, it is a time when we will either be accepted or not accepted. There has been some people who came out of their deep sleep, only to say they wish they would not have been awakened. Only God has the right to end our lives on Earth.

Answer 4

I think we treat our animals better than we treat our sick and suffering.
I think that if a person is beyond all help and is suffering and the only out is death, then if they want to die we should help them. If they are in a coma or on life support and suffering then we should be allowed to end their suffering just as we do for a beloved pet.
Especially if there is a living will that states that the person wants to be put out of their misery.
I don't think anyone should be forced to suffer and then die and I don't think religion should get in the way of a peaceful death.
I think it should be up to the individual and to the family.

Answer 5

You're right.

Why can't we give our suffering relatives the same consideration we give our suffering pets?

If a) professional doctors say the disease is untreatable and terminal, and b) the sick person is lucid enough to make the decision, then it should be his decision -- not the decision of the family, or doctors, or clergy.

I know this flies in the face of the Church's stance on the sacredness of life and the redeeming quality of suffering, but I have a hard time believing that God wants any sick person to suffer for extended periods of agony for some spiritual lesson.

Answer 6

It is certainly far more humane than letting them suffer if they don't want to. I think it's outrageous that a human can be allowed to starve to death when someone pulls a plug on them but you can't do that to an animal, it wouldn't be humane and indeed it wouldn't be.

The problem I see with the whole issue is who gets to decide it's lights out for the patient.

Answer 7

Well, people have a lot of different ethical and religious views about euthansia. I don't have any religion and I wouldn't call myself the most ethical person either. Personally, I wouldn't want to live in debilitating pain with no hope of recovery. That's not really living, that's just an existence, and a pretty bad one at that. If I found myself in that unfortunate situation, I'd want euthansia to be one of my options.

Answer 8

I have mixed feelings about it, having watched my father die a slow, agonizing death from metastasis derived from colon cancer. There were times when I fervently wished he would die a smooth quick death, but that did not happen. It took him two years from the time we first knew about the colon cancer, to the day he died.
Something like this brings us face to face with a fact of life we do not want to think about. It brings out the best in us, it is a process, not only for the person who is dying, but for the entire family as well. We learned a lot about ourselves and the limits of human endurance. We learned about compassion, we learned that all the petty squabbles become unimportant, we learned to tap wellsprings of love within ourselves we didn't even know existed.
Strange things happened too. During his last hospital stay, where he ultimately died, one week prior to his death he told my mother he could see his only brother, who had passed away many years before, and with whom he had quarreled bitterly, never to speak to again. We later learned he had died and no one had told us anything. My mother watched in shock as my father raised his arms to embrace his brother, of course she saw nothing, but to my father it was real, and it was a great moment because they forgave each other, he also saw his dad, his mom and some dark haired woman who beckoned to him and which he could'nt quite recognize until he described her and my mom told him it was her niece who had passed away one year ago. He lost conciousness and his entire body started shutting down the engines little by little. One moment he was breathing and the next he was gone. There must have been pain but he was beyond it before he died, we learned the cancer had spread to his brain and his lungs. My father was not a religious person by the way, he never mentioned angels, or Christ or anything. My father rarely went to church, he believed in a superior being or entity, but did not go for organized religious dogmas which he believed, tended to alienate people more than they united them, funny thing if you consider that all religions preach the same things, love, patience, tolerance, etc, but humans tend to twist this and use it against each other.
What can I tell you. I guess this is such a personal experience that no one can tell us what to do, or what is right or wrong. The answer becomes obvious as time progresses. All I can tell you is that if you are a religious person and believe that God's purpose permeates everything that happens, then you have to believe that going through a process like the slow death of a love one is meant to teach you something, and to teach the person who is dying something as well. We put our house in order and that is what I learned. That there are greater things beyond our little lives and those things we consider important become superficial and shallow, and we move to a higher sphere that would be denied to us if we could put our loved ones out of their misery, like we do with our pets. I guess that some people would disagree, but some put their house in order and then resort to euthanasia, but not before everything had been said and done and the best in people has been allowed to flourish first. Loved ones should be allowed to die knowing they are loved, and that they are forgiven and that is all that matters.

Answer 9

I'm all for making people comfortable, to start with. I think some doctors are too stingy with the pain meds, because the strong ones are addictive. Hello! The person is dying, what does addiction matter?

If at some point, the effective dose of pain meds for a terminal patient becomes a lethal dose, then go ahead and give it to them. But I also think it's important for people to make their desires known in writing ahead of time.

Answer 10

It just shows how hipocritical we are as a society. It just like your "right wing," conservative, religious, prolife fanatics who claim having an abortion is murder and go to any extreme to prevent it. But they bi*tch, complain, and vote against any kind of social funding for the welfare of the child once they are born.

Sorry *******, you can't have it both ways.