Mercy Killing

[neo-x]

What are your thoughts on the matter? Is it okay, or is it against scripture?

[Danieltwotwenty]

I think a decision would be on a case by case basis, I have no problem with ending someone's suffering when it is terminal. Doctors do it all the time by upping the morphine until the body gives out when a patient is in agonising pain.
This actually happens in war scenarios quite a bit when a wound is so bad it has become terminal, they pump them full of morphine until they effectively overdose.
I don't see anything unbiblical about it.

[PaulSacramento]

It's funny how we don't question it when it comes to our pets, that we decide that the poor things shoudl suffer anymore when there is no hope or chance of survival BUT yet we can't afford our human counter-parts that same decency.

[Jac3510]

Opposed.

In the cases Daniel talked about, the doctor is not trying to kill the patient. He is trying to stop the pain. He knows that the amount of morphine necessary will hasten the patient's death--that is, the patient's death from the procedure is forseen--but that is not the desired or intended goal. This is a well established principle in ethics called the Law of Double Effect. In principle, if a lesser amount of morphine could do the job, or if there is another way to manage the pain without killing the patient is available, the doctors are ethically obligated to try those options first.

In the case of killing our pets, the question doesn't matter because the ethics of killing animals are simply different from the ethics of killing people. PETA notwithstanding, dogs are not persons and do not have the same moral rights as persons do. They are property and can be treated as such. They are living, sentient creatures, and so they deserve a higher degree of respect that, say, a toy car, but that higher level of respect does not translate into an equal moral demand of life that humans have.

With all that said, I am in favor of allowing death to take place under certain circumstances. People are not medically or morally obligated to accept (extraordinary) health care. There is a difference, however, in allowing people to die and causing them to die (passive vs. active euthansia, respectively). We are morally prohibited, however, from causing them to die.

[PaulSacramento]

I don't think anyone is talking about killing as much as talking about a person's right to be allowed to die.
I think most will agree that a person should be allowed to die with as little suffering as possible.
The tricky slope for some is helping a person to die because their quality of life is no more( in their view).
Having a father that is terminally ill with ALS and seeing him turn from a very active person to a bid ridden quadripeligic has given me a new perspective on quality of life and what WE think it is and what a person that has lost it thinks it is.

[Jac3510]

Having a father that is terminally ill with ALS and seeing him turn from a very active person to a bid ridden quadripeligic has given me a new perspective on quality of life and what WE think it is and what a person that has lost it thinks it is.

Would you be open to sharing some about your new perspective? Your perspective before and what it is now? I understand all to well that this is a difficult subject, so if you don't want to, I understand. If you could though, I've found that real world experience is the best way to put an idea to the test. Something that works in the classroom but not at the hospital bedside probably isn't worth believing. I'm not saying that experience determines truth, of course. I am saying, though, that truth, because it is truth, is just the type of thing that is experienced. So I think it adds a lot of value to take some of these questions out of their theoretical frameworks and put them in the contexts of concrete, real life happenings.

[Furstentum Liechtenstein]

Nope...I don't like ''mercy killing'' ... we've been killing our unborn for several decades so far. Most people are fine with the idea, and will even defend it vociferously. Now, there is a growing movement to legislate another form of murder, ''the right to die in dignity'' as it is euphemistically called here. It became OK to kill unborn babies 50 years ago, terminally ill people are next, useless old people soon, unproductive citizens after them.

When do you think your turn is coming?

FL

[RickD]

Nope...I don't like ''mercy killing'' ... we've been killing our unborn for several decades so far. Most people are fine with the idea, and will even defend it vociferously. Now, there is a growing movement to legislate another form of murder, ''the right to die in dignity'' as it is euphemistically called here. It became OK to kill unborn babies 50 years ago, terminally ill people are next, useless old people soon, unproductive citizens after them.

When do you think your turn is coming?

FL

FL, I can understand your uneasiness. You're almost in that "useless old people" category.

For all you Americans, where has our morality gone, when the liberal Canadian(FL) is more conservative on this issue?

[Furstentum Liechtenstein]

FL, I can understand your uneasiness. You're almost in that "useless old people" category.

For all you Americans, where has our morality gone, when the liberal Canadian(FL) is more conservative on this issue?

STOP TELLING EVERYBODY THAT I'M Canadian! I'm gonna lose all credibility!

FL