Life & Death Decisions

[Neil_Anthony]

We believe that God gets to decide when people are born and when people die. So we shouldn’t use euthanasia to kill people before they die naturally, and we shouldn’t use abortion or artificial birth control to decide who gets to be born. We aren’t supposed to take away this decision from God.

But then isn’t it inconsistent that we allow medical care? If God wants to take someone and end their life, why would we use artificial means to prolong their live? We can’t use artificial means to shorten their life since it’s God’s decision when they die. But medicine tries to force God to make them live longer.

 

[Newbie2]

We believe that God gets to decide when people are born and when people die. So we shouldn’t use euthanasia to kill people before they die naturally, and we shouldn’t use abortion or artificial birth control to decide who gets to be born. We aren’t supposed to take away this decision from God.

But then isn’t it inconsistent that we allow medical care? If God wants to take someone and end their life, why would we use artificial means to prolong their live? We can’t use artificial means to shorten their life since it’s God’s decision when they die. But medicine tries to force God to make them live longer.

Exactly where the moral application or question lies!

It’s not always clear when medication or medical procedures are merely keeping a person alive or making progress toward acheiving a (relatively) healthy state.

I suppose taken to the extreme, giving a child an antibiotic for a mild to moderate sinus infection, for example, could be seen as “forcing God to make them live longer”, as it could progress to pneumonia and death.

Methinks the key lies in honoring the sanctity of life, while respecting the “quality of life” and dignity of the individual…which is frequently less than clear where the boundries lie.

 

[TableServant]

Ah, but we aren’t forcing God to do anything. God has given us both a natural tendency toward health and science that allows us to assist that body toward health. An example - if you cut your finger, it bleeds, but then, depending of course on the depth of the cut, it heals - it naturally tends toward wholeness. You assist in the healing with an anti-biotic and a bandage. You have not forced God to heal the cut, but have used what is known about the body to assist the natural process.

And that is the point, *assisting the natural process. *If we are using what we know about the body to promote health, we are acting morally, but if we are simply avoiding death, prolonging life without thought, then we are acting contrary to God’s design.

 

[Neil_Anthony]

Ah, but we aren’t forcing God to do anything. God has given us both a natural tendency toward health and science that allows us to assist that body toward health. An example - if you cut your finger, it bleeds, but then, depending of course on the depth of the cut, it heals - it naturally tends toward wholeness. You assist in the healing with an anti-biotic and a bandage. You have not forced God to heal the cut, but have used what is known about the body to assist the natural process.

And that is the point, *assisting the natural process. *If we are using what we know about the body to promote health, we are acting morally, but if we are simply avoiding death, prolonging life without thought, then we are acting contrary to God’s design.

But these arguments have parallel arguments which we know are wrong:

The body naturally tends towards death when we are old. So, why not help the body along when someone is clearly dying

The body naturally tends towards reproduction, so, why not use in vitro fertilization to help it along when there is some medical difficulty

Why are your arguments logical/reasonable but the above ones arent?

 

[Holly3278]

I would think that God would want us to do things that would help to prolong our lives.

 

[tinman]

I talked to my priest about this, and he didn’t see any problem with a Do Not Resuscitate order.

The Roman Catholic Church, along with many conservative Protestant Evangelical scholars and clinical medical ethicists, affirm the right of a dying person to forego treatments that are truly futile, only prolong one’s death, or impose significant pain and suffering in exchange for little assistance. The difficult part, at times, is knowing how futile treatments really are, how much benefit might be expected from a given treatment, and how much pain and suffering might result from pursuing further treatment. These questions seldom have clear answers and must be weighed and discussed with the treatment team, one’s extended support network, and, hopefully, with one’s pastor.