48 posts tagged “euthanasia”

A one year old boy, who could have a tracheotomy, be taken home from the hospital and live his life, may have his ventilator removed at the wishes of his mother and the HOSPITAL TRUST PAYING FOR HIS CARE, because his severe physical disability has been deemed 'intolerable suffering'. His father disagrees and is fighting for his son's life.

'Quality of life'.  Brothers and sisters, can we think about that phrase for a moment?  Can we think about what we are saying when we are using it?  Can we, as Christians, really use that phrase?

As both a Christian and a caregiver for the elderly and those with disabilities, I'm struck with this Biblical view point- sin obstructs our decision making process.  In our fallen state, we often make choices, including medical choices, for the wrong reasons- often for motives that appeal to the flesh or mere human reasoning.  While patients should remain a crucial part of the decision making process regarding their medical treatment and doctors should have the freedom to discern the best care for his/her patient, both patients and doctors would be wise to remember that human reasoning does not always lead us to the right choices.

Bioethics is attempting to set standards for the conduct of medicine and healthcare in an age of new knowledge and changing science.  However, bioethicists are setting these standards from a fallen state of mind.  Truth is subjective to them, as are ethics, dependent on such things as a person’s worldview, religion, and philosophy.   “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.”  (Proverbs 14:12, 16:25)  If this proverb has ever been relevant, it is so with bioethics.  

When we, as Christians, set standards for how we care for the sick and needy, we must remember that truth is not relative.  The truth- the Biblical truth- about who God is and who man is plays a critical role in regard to medical decisions that affect the lives of the weak and the needy. All of those we care for in the hospital bed, teach life skills to in the group home, or 'produce' in the laboratory are deserving of dignity and respect for the sole reason that "In the image of God, made He man."  (Genesis 9:6)  So, while scientists can manipulate genes and clone embryos, we can never engineer the image of God out of a human being.  This truth alone could set the tone for any medical ethic.

However, likewise, in our attempts to manipulate genes and clone embryos to eradicate diseases and eliminate disabilities, we can never create a person who will not inherit the struggle with sin.  As much as we are created in the image of God, we are also sons of Adam; therefore, there will never be a perfect person.  Our only hope remains, as it always has, in Christ and Him crucified.  In His work on the cross- the great exchange, the righteous for the unrighteous, the suffering for our sins so He could save us from them and bring us to God.   This is incredible mercy and incredible love.

Despite the uniqueness of each created person, in these two things- our common created image and our common depravity- man can be considered virtually identical to one another.  Our worth could not be contingent upon any work or ability.  To say that a person is too weak or does not contribute enough is laughable compared to the greatness and splendor and perfection that is in God!  All men fall short of that Glory.  We are all too weak and no one ‘contributes’ enough!  For all of us, our worth is dependent only on who we are through the work of Christ at the cross. 

With new life in Christ through the cross, we are given new nature and the told to renew our minds.  In both this new nature and in our renewed minds, we view suffering, ethics, and caring for the weak and the vulnerable differently.  We now consider those weaker than we are, and we realize that it is a sin to not show them the same grace and mercy we were given, even if one is so weak that he or she is not even cognitively aware of it.  

Suffering is horrible.  It is no light thing.  We are better off dead and at peace with our Maker than alive on this dead earth!  But in our renewed minds, we know, also, that we cannot take suffering into our own hands, as those in bioethics seem to do.  We can never consider breaking God’s commandment to not murder, for instance, through abortion and euthanasia because we deem someone to be suffering too much.  We cooperate with nature and conform to the way God created it.  For when we attempt to manipulate nature (think of the undignified 'Ashley Treatment') and destroy that which we judge undesirable- destroy whom we judge undesirable because of the sufferings they are given- we question God’s goodness and wisdom leaving us rebuked as Job was- “Where was man when God laid the foundation of the earth?”  

As we painfully watch those around us suffer, doing all we can to ease their suffering, we are to suffer with those suffering.  We are not to cooperate with the hopelessness that suffering brings by manipulating the death one suffering or who we assume will suffer after birth.  Instead we offer them and their loved ones the hope of Christ found in His Gospel, that those who call upon His name will be saved from their sin soaked hearts, from the wrath of God, and from hell.  And that those who call upon His name will be saved to new life in Christ, to a perfect and holy body in eternity, and the unimaginable joy of eternity in the presence of the Creator.

Because of the unity we have with Christ (because of the great love and mercy shown to us at the cross), we, in humility, count others more significant than ourselves.  We look not only to our own interests, but also to the interests of others.  We have this mind among ourselves, which is ours in Christ Jesus Who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.  (Philippians 2:1-8)

And so we humble ourselves to one another, using our freedom to serve one another in love (Galatians 5:13), taking tender care of the weak (1 Thessalonians 5:14), seeking justice and encouraging the oppressed (Isaiah 1:17), and becoming disabled to the disabled (1 Corinthians 9:22) in order to share the Gospel to all people, in hopes that all people will be saved from, among other things, their fallen states of minds, having their minds aligned with Christ and His purposes for all things- including suffering and caring for those suffering.  

Today is the fourth anniversary of the death of Terri Schiavo.  I don't really know what to say about it, except that I guess I just wanted to acknowledge it. 

TerriSchiavo

I miss her, this stranger.  I miss praying for her.

Four years ago, a real woman's life was taken from her under guise of compassion and alleged choice.  She was not brain dead.  Though living with a profound cognitive disability, she was not completely void of cognitive awareness (a 'vegetable' being the derogatory term), although, that would not have made her any less of a person nor any less worthy of care had she been.

We have a terrible fear of acquiring a severe disability, and we have a terrible fear of those with severe and profound disabilities.  Until that fear is resolved, the prejudice that leads to institutionalization and this kind of murder will not end.

Before we blame the secular bioethicists and the 'liberal media', though, perhaps we who call ourselves Christians should look at our own ungodly reactions to people like Terri Schiavo, that is to people who are experiencing pain and suffering.

Frederick K.C. Price of Crenshaw Christian Center:

We don't allow sickness in our home." (Frederick K.C. Price, Is Healing for All? (Tulsa: Harrison House, 1979), 20

 ... how can you glorify God in your body, when it doesn't function right? How can you glorify God? How can He get glory when your body doesn't even work? ... What makes you think the Holy Ghost wants to live inside a body where He can't see out through the windows and He can't hear with the ears? What makes you think the Holy Spirit wants to live inside of a physical body where the limbs and the organs and the cells do not function right? ... And what makes you think He wants to live in a temple where He can't see out of the eyes, and He can't walk with the feet, and He can't move with the hand? ... The only eyes that he has that are in the earth realm are the eyes that are in the body. If He can't see out of them then God's gonna be limited he's not going to be helped...” applause (Frederick K.C. Price, “Is God Glorified Through Sickness?” (Los Angeles: Crenshaw Christian Center, n.d.), audiotape #FP605)

In John 5 we read about a man who had been sick for 38 years sitting by the pool of Bethesda for the opportunity to climb into the pool after an angel had stirred it and be healed.  When Jesus asked him, "Do you want to be healed?" vs 6), the man replied, ""Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me." (vs 7) After that, verses 8-9 say, Jesus said to him, "Get up, take up your bed, and walk." And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.

That's basically all these verses say about this man's healing.  However, both Joel Osteen, who often makes claim to the idea that being healed is one's own responsibility by believing a certain way, in his book, Your Best Life Now and Joyce Meyer in her book, Eight Ways to Keep the Devil Under Your Feet claim that this man lay around the pool feeling sorry for himself and making excuses.  Says Osteen:

If you're serious about being well, if you really want to be made physically and emotionally whole, you must get up and get moving with your life.  No more lying around feeling sorry for yourself."

Says Meyer:

I would think that after thirty-eight years, a diligent, determined person could have crawled over to the edge of that pool.  Even if that man had only moved an inch a year, it seems that in thirty-eight years, he ought to have been able to get close enough to the edge to just roll over into the water when it was stirred up."

And here is where fear and prejudice of disability seem to come through in Meyer's words:

Thirty eight years is a long time to lie somewhere, waiting for somebody to do something for you.  I would have been on the edge of the that pool, and next year when the angel came around, when that water started bubbling, I would have fallen in and said, 'Either I'm going to get healed or I'm going to die, but I'm not staying like this'" (emphasis mine)"

And dare we forget Todd Bentley?  Bentley spent the summer parading people with illnesses and disabilities on stage, either physically assaulting them or telling stories about how he had physically assaulted people at other times, mocking them, and proclaiming miracles for them, though not one single miracle could be verified by the secular media.  (Go to YouTube, search for Todd Bentley, and watch the videos for yourself.)

These are just a very few examples of well known Christians' 'appreciation' for suffering.  This is sad.

Thankfully, they do not represent all of us.

I read these words today in Andrew Comisky's book, Pursuing Sexual Wholeness:

 

Pursing Sexual Wholeness

In this lifetime Jesus does not intend to satisfy very craving of the soul, to remove every weakness.  For our deep longings are for Him above all else.  That longing within us is not merely the result of personal brokenness or the influence of family and friends: it's intrinsic to our status as the created, as children disposed to grow upward to the Creator, through His love. Our fallenness highlights the folly of attempting to secure ourselves on the earth, through the creature.  The Father employs the aches and longings that remain to keep us focused on Himself. 

But His purposes don't end there.  He desires to employ that which has yet to be healed as an avenue of His grace.  Through the wounds and deprivations  that He indwells, God creates in us a deep wellsring of compassion- His heart- toward others who are broken.  He graces us and intends to use us to grace others." 

Though Comisky is speaking to those who struggle with sexual brokeness, the same can be said for all Christians who want their best life now and expect bodily perfection and wordly prosperity.  We are all broken.  This brokeness forces us to find our strengh and sufficiency in Him.  We then, in turn, offer the same undeserved mercy and grace God offers to us to others, to people like Terri Schiavo, caring for and protecting their life.

It's the way of the Cross.  It's the way of Christ.

Montana judge: Man has right to assisted suicide

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — A Montana judge has ruled that doctor-assisted suicides are legal in the state, a decision likely to be appealed as the state argues that the Legislature, not the court, should decide whether terminally ill patients have the right to take their own life.

Judge Dorothy McCarter issued the ruling late Friday in the case of a Billings man with terminal cancer, who had sued the state with four physicians that treat terminally ill patients and anonprofit patients' rights group.

"The Montana constitutional rights of individual privacy and human dignity, taken together, encompass the right of a competent terminally (ill) patient to die with dignity," McCarter said in the ruling.

It also said that those patients had the right to obtain self-administered medications to hasten death if they find their suffering to be unbearable, and that physicians can prescribe such medication without fear of prosecution.

"The patient's right to die with dignity includes protection of the patient's physician from liability under the state's homicide statutes," the judge wrote.

Attorney General Mike McGrath said Saturday that attorneys in his office would discuss the ruling next week and expected the state will appeal the ruling...

...The state attorney general's office had argued that intentionally taking a life was illegal, and that the issue was the responsibility of the state Legislature.

Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Anders had argued the state has no evaluation process, safeguards or regulations to provide guidance or oversight for doctor-assisted suicide. The state also said it was premature to declare constitutional rights for a competent, terminally ill patient because the terms "competent" or "terminally ill" had yet to be defined.

The ruling noted that doctors are often asked to "determine the competency of their patients for the purposes of guardianship and other legal proceedings."

"Whether a patient is terminally ill can also be determined by the physician as an integral component of the physician-patient relationship," McCarter wrote.

McCarter's ruling makes Montana the third state after Oregon and Washington to allow doctor-assisted suicides. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1997 that terminally ill patients have no constitutional right to doctor-assisted suicide but did nothing to prevent states from legalizing the process.

So, apparently, a judge can go a make a decision like this all by herself... How? It's unbelievable.

The Media's Love for Suicide Outlaws

On this episode of What It Means to Be Human, Wesley J. Smith takes a look at the media’s fawning treatment of suicide advocates. What does a reporter see when he visits the home of a suicide facilitator? Strangely and sadly, he often sees a hero.

Listen in as bioethicist Wesley J. Smith shows how journalism has become a prime mover in the culture of death, to the point that its terminal nonjudgmentalism cannot be trusted.

What We Are Becoming With the Culture of Death

On this episode of What It Means to Be Human, bioethicist and Discovery Institute senior fellow Wesley J. Smith takes a look at our culture’s "terminal nonjudgmentalism." How far have we come as a society when we lose the will to save suicidal people's lives? Smith examines two outrageous cases from the UK,
one where doctors refused to save a dying girl and another where a disabled man’s parents helped took him to Switzerland to commit suicide. What does the advocacy of death culture turn us into? Tune in and find out.

In this episode, Smith quotes a study that says after 5 years, the depression of those who've acquired a severe disability later in life levels to the same as those without disabilities. Something to think about STRONGLY when it comes to the debate over assisted suicide

More mothers reject abortion to have babies with Down's syndrome

MORE babies are being born with Down's syndrome than before pre-natal screening for the disorder was introduced at the end of the 1980s, it was revealed yesterday.

Parents appear more willing to bring a Down's child into the world than they used to be, research shows.

Many are taking the decision because those affected by the syndrome are more accepted in society today and their quality of life has improved, according to a new survey.

After the widespread introduction of screening for Down's syndrome in 1989, the number of babies born with the condition in the UK fell from 717 to 594 at the start of this decade.

But since 2000, the birthrate has increased, reaching 749 in 2006, the latest year for which figures are available.

Figures from a national Down's syndrome register show that the proportion of newborn children with Down's rose by around 15 per cent between 2000 and 2006.

The Down's Syndrome Association, in conjunction with the BBC, conducted a survey of 1,000 of its members to find out why so many were choosing to have Down's children despite the availability of pre-natal screening.

The findings show that while religious or pro-life beliefs counted in about a third of cases, many parents felt that life and society had improved for people affected by Down's. Others said their decision was influenced by the fact that they knew people with Down's or other disabilities.

Carol Boys, chief executive of the Down's Syndrome Association, said: "We are all very surprised by this. It wasn't what any of us working in the field would have anticipated and it seems to show more parents are thinking more carefully before opting for pre-natal screening and termination – that being born with Down's syndrome is being seen in a different light today."

When I and others had our babies, it was a very different world – those with Down's syndrome were treated very differently. Now, there is much greater inclusion and acceptance, with mainstream education having a huge role. "We think this plays a part in the decisions parents make – there's even been a baby with Down's syndrome on EastEnders."

Pandora Summerfield, director of Down's Syndrome Scotland, said: "We applaud these women who go ahead with their pregnancies. "It is very heartening to hear that women are making a positive choice because society is more accepting."

Read whole article here.

I especially appreciate that many made the decision to have their child because they knew people with Down Syndrome or other disabilities. Acquaintanceship, but especially relationship, with people with disabilities makes all the difference in how we view them and their lives. When we are in relationship with people with disabilities, we value them and their lives and come to understand the common personhood in all of us.

For so many years, those with disabilities, especially developmental disabilities have been isolated, left to their 'own kind' and to the care of 'others' in some unknown facility. What has happned as a result is the ignorance of society regarding disability and people with disabilities. It takes real relationship between people with and without disabilities for destigmazation and understanding to occur.

Unfortunately, relationship isn't happening fast enough. Technology is fast advancing and those who still hold on to beliefs that those with disabilities have a low quality of life and are a burden to society are eager to use technology to end lives.

So, go make a friend. Start here, perhaps. "e-Buddies is an e-mail pen pal program that pairs persons with an intellectual disability in a one-to-one e-mail friendship with a peer volunteer who does not have an intellectual disability."

Germany to compile roll of Nazi euthanasia victims

BERLIN (Reuters) - German historians have started compiling a central register of 9,000 mentally ill people murdered as part of the Nazis' euthanasia policy, most of whom were previously unidentified.

More than 100,000 people are believed to have been killed during a drive inspired by Hitler that was carried out in six extermination centres in Germany between 1940 and 1945.

The idea of a Nazi euthanasia campaign, backed by propaganda films portraying the mentally handicapped and incurably ill as "useless mouths to feed", was first outlined in Hitler's 1924 book "Mein Kampf" and became known as Operation T4.

Read rest of article here

One correction needed as Wesley J Smith points out on his blog. "Hitler didn't inspire it, he was inspired by the pre-existing eugenics movement to boost it. Indeed, in Mein Kamph Hitler discussed these ideas, which he did not generate, but that were already in the public discourse raging in Germany, the USA, and the UK."