The list is endless, and we can have great fun dreaming up scenarios. How about the guy who refuses chemo-therapy? How about the parent who starves so the kids can eat? How about Big Bad John? And Spock? How about Spock in the anti-matter chamber?What about people who jump out of burning buildings rather than burn alive. Aren’t they also willfully ending their life to avoid pain? Is this self-inflicted mercy killing?
Well said. We like to think we have human behavior all figured out and can reduce it to a set of rules. We don’t.Ever been on fire?
I think God will understand. As always only he knows the true intentions of the heart.
-D
You don’t have to go as far back as WWII.I’ve heard a story about a soldier in WWI who threw himself on a granade to save the other men in his trench, and that this was an heoic act of self sacrifice because he gave up his life to save others, in the same way Christ did. But if a person were to kill himself so that a terminally ill person who was about to die could have his organs, wouldn’t this be the same thing, or is it wrong? The scenario was on House the other night and it got me thinking.
True. But blocking the blast is not the same as being exploded to death. One unfortunately results inevitably from the other, but clearly death isn’t essential to “blocking blast” like it is to “removing heart” or “cutting off head”. For the first, it is not the soldier’s death that is necessary to saving the lives…whether he dies from the blast is incidental as long as he blocks it somehow.Blowing the heart out with a satchel charge is the same as killing. It’s one event.
Under current medical conditions, death is essential in using one’s body to block the blast of a satchel charge.True. But blocking the blast is not the same as being exploded to death. One unfortunately results inevitably from the other, but clearly death isn’t essential to “blocking blast” like it is to “removing heart” or “cutting off head”. For the first, it is not the soldier’s death that is necessary to saving the lives…whether he dies from the blast is incidental as long as he blocks it somehow.
But with the heart trasplant, the death of the first patient is necessary, and is in fact the cause of the saving of the other. You can’t reasonably say, “The patient’s death is not essential as long as he gives away his heart somehow”…well, under current medical conditions, death IS removing the heart. “Removing heart” is not a neutral action like “sitting on satchel” is…removing heart IS death, “sitting on satchel” merely CAUSES death, but may cause other (good) effects too.
No. Removing the heart IS death. When removing the heart without a replacement immediately on site, death necessarily follows.Removing the heart causes death. Embracing a satchel charge causes death.
Also true, but we must be careful with this.The soldier would have died most likely from the grenade anyways, he was just aleviating the situation so that only he died.
If death follows the removal of the heart, then removal is not death.No. Removing the heart IS death. When removing the heart without a replacement immediately on site, death necessarily follows.
When embracing a satchel, death only probably follows…but there have been people to survive very nearby explosions.
But no one has ever mysteriously survived with no sort of heart.
They can. Jesus was referring to “mankind” not males in John 15:13.Why can’t women do the same thing?
I think there’s a pretty good argument that the people who jumped to their deaths from the World Trade Center on 9/11 were under such mental, emotional and physical duress that they lacked full use of their capacity to reason. I think this could be true even if they felt perfectly lucid at the time and thought they were exercising their free will.What about people who jump out of burning buildings rather than burn alive. Aren’t they also willfully ending their life to avoid pain? Is this self-inflicted mercy killing?
The beauty of operating in the virtual world rather than he real world is that we get to make up the rules. Let’s say a guy is on the operating table, surrounded by a team of transplant surgeons, and he then pushes the plunger that ends his own life. The transplant team declares him dead, harvests the heart, and installs it immediately.I think there’s a pretty good argument that the people who jumped to their deaths from the World Trade Center on 9/11 were under such mental, emotional and physical duress that they lacked full use of their capacity to reason. I think this could be true even if they felt perfectly lucid at the time and thought they were exercising their free will.
I have to agree that throwing yourself on a grenade is not suicide, because your primary intent is not to kill yourself, but to save the lives of others. It’s not so clear-cut in the case of somebody who kils himself in order to donate his organs. Deliberate, premeditated suicide is objectively evil, even if a particular case presents facts that mitigate or negate guilt.
It should be noted that killing yourself to donate your organs is not only morally evil but may also be a vain act. The organs start to deteriorate immediately at the moment of death, and quickly become useless for transplantation.
That’s what happened on House. He took pills and by the time they found him he was dying and so they took the heart…You would have a stronger case if you said the guy killed himself so his heart could be taken.
Well, I’d like to see you imagine the two seperated in this day and age.If death follows the removal of the heart, then removal is not death.
It’s either death or it isn’t. “Basically death” doesn’t cut it. I actually think such distinctions are silly, but if you hold to the notion a guy holding a satchel charge to his chest will live, I guess I can have some fun, too.That’s what happened on House. He took pills and by the time they found him he was dying and so they took the heart…
Well, I’d like to see you imagine the two seperated in this day and age.
I actually know some people who have survived a (propane) explosion with “only” severe burns.
I know NO ONE who is walking around without a heart in their chest. Removing the heart, like decapitation, IS basically death.
An EMT is not allowed to presume death when they reach a patient unless there are certain undeniable signs of death; rigor mortis, decapitation, and an excised heart being some of them.