As a Catholic you are allowed to refuse to take life saving medication. No where did I tell her to kill herself. I told her if, to her, death is preferable than her current life she should stop taking the medication keeping her alive. Catholic patients are allowed to refuse resuscitation and other life saving procedures. Aren’t you Catholic and know this? If she stops taking the meds, that is not suicide. Yes, only she knows, so she should make the call. If she feels her life isn’t worth living, she should let nature do it’s work. If she wants to live, then she can continue to do all she can to keep herself alive. And she doesn’t sound suicidal to me. She sounds like she’s playing the sympathy card. And I felt sorry for her until she started this whole “I’d rather be dead” theme. What you wanted to do was something active to end your life. What she would be doing is not doing anything.
The Church teaches the following:
"…An act or
omission which, of itself or by **intention, causes death in order to eliminate suffering constitutes a murder gravely contrary to the dignity of the human person and to the respect due to the living God, ** his Creator. The error of judgment into which one can fall in good faith does not change the nature of this murderous act, which must
always be forbidden and excluded. (CCC 2277)
“Discontinuing medical procedures that are
burdensome, dangerous, extraordinary, or disproportionate to the expected outcome can be legitimate; it is the refusal of
“over-zealous” treatment. Here one does not
will to cause death; one’s inability to impede it is merely accepted…” (CCC 2278)
If Pathia were a patient in a hospital and was maintaining life only because of machines which kept respiration going, etc. it would be acceptable to turn off the machines and allow death to occur. However, Pathia is here, on this forum, conscious and able to type comprehensible posts. He/she is obviously not covered under CCC 2278. Taking life-saving medication is not burdensome, dangerous, extraordinary, or disproportionate to the expected outcome. However, Pathia’s option of discontinuing life-saving medication is covered under CCC 2277 where it states that an omission which causes death constitutes a murder, even if it is done in order to eliminate suffering. If Pathia decides to stop life-saving medication in order to die, he/she is committing the grave sin of murder. Pathia would be murdering Pathia. It would be the same as if a diabetic stopped injecting insulin in order to die. It is suicide. It is absolutely forbidden by the Catholic Church.
As far as Pathia’s intentions of posting as he/she does, that is between Pathia and God. I’m not going to decide that Pathia is lying or playing the “sympathy card.” That burden is on Pathia. I can only go by what the posts say. Also, even if Pathia were lying, there are lurkers here who may very well be in the situation Pathia describes.
