Mercy Killing - Is there any way to justify it?

[Inego_de_Loyola]

Also, I am simply not able (at this point) to draw a parallel between this scenario and the one presented in the movie “Million Dollar Baby”. In the case of Heyward, his suffering can’t be alleviated and his death is absolutely inevitable. Such a situation can in no way be compared to our current cultural debate on euthanasia, whereby most, if not all human suffering, can be alleviated with care and drugs that will allow the person to die with as little agony as possible.

Of course, one could perhaps argue that Poe could have thrown himself onto the fire, in an attempt to extinguish the flames and save Heyward in that manner.

Catechism of the Catholic Church:

Euthanasia

2276 Those whose lives are diminished or weakened deserve special respect. Sick or handicapped persons should be helped to lead lives as normal as possible.

2277 Whatever its motives and means, direct euthanasia consists in putting an end to the lives of handicapped, sick, or dying persons.
It is morally unacceptable.
Thus 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.

2278 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.
The decisions should be made by the patient if he is competent and able or, if not, by those legally entitled to act for the patient, whose reasonable will and legitimate interests must always be respected.

2279 Even if death is thought imminent, the ordinary care owed to a sick person cannot be legitimately interrupted.
The use of painkillers to alleviate the sufferings of the dying, even at the risk of shortening their days, can be morally in conformity with human dignity if death is not willed as either an end or a means, but only foreseen and tolerated as inevitable
Palliative care is a special form of disinterested charity.
As such it should be encouraged.

You are absolutely right **there is no parallel because it is the same thing! **the word euthanasia actually means mercy killing but it is murder one way or the other!
Read your Catechism especially this section!

 

[mark_a]

Fine, I’d be real happy if someone murdered me if I was in that situation.

That’s just too funny!!

 

[Inego_de_Loyola]

That’s just too funny!!

Funny peculiar, or funny Ha Ha?

 

[Jay2]

Lesse…No way out of this situation… two options:

Watching/feeling/smelling my flesh roast off my body and waiting for the inherent damage to cause unconscienceness…
or
SMACK, a sharp pain in the forehead…

Hmmm

Gimme the bullet.

 

[maryjk]

An attempt to rescue heyward would be admirable,:yup: but we aren’t discussing that we are discussing murdering him to spare him a little pain! :nope:

A little pain???

Zooey:

If I were Duncan Heyward, & being burned at the stake, I would no doubt wish that someone would just shoot me. If I saw Duncan Heyward being burned, and I had a gun, I might, to be completely honest, just shoot him to end his suffering.
The difference between what one might do, in a hypothetical case, however, has nothing to do with what is right & what is wrong. One key difference between a person with firm moral standards, & another person without them, is that the moral person does not make the mistake of assuming that because s/he might do it (or wish it done ), that this has any effect whatsoever on the morality of the action. It doesn’t.

I agree. It would be wrong. Most likely, I would want someone to shoot me. And most likely, I would seriously consider shooting the person burning at the stake.

Being burned alive would be a VERY painful death. Yes, it would be wonderful to offer that pain up to God, but I wouldn’t want to die that way or watch someone die that way.

 

[LilyM]

Being burned alive would be a VERY painful death. Yes, it would be wonderful to offer that pain up to God, but I wouldn’t want to die that way or watch someone die that way.

Of course you wouldn’t.

Neither, if my marriage was miserable and I met another man or woman to whom I was deeply attracted, would I want to say no to an affair.
Neither, if I was failing at university and about to be kicked out, would I want to say no if my professor said he could pass me in return for a bribe.
Neither did Jesus want to die on the Cross or the Apostles to be martyred, really.

Moral behaviour is about doing what’s right, not just doing what you want or what feels good.

 

[Inego_de_Loyola]

A little pain???

Little compared to Purgatory or Hell.
And very little compared to the joy of heaven!

 

[Inego_de_Loyola]

Lesse…No way out of this situation… two options:

Watching/feeling/smelling my flesh roast off my body and waiting for the inherent damage to cause unconscienceness…
or
SMACK, a sharp pain in the forehead…

Hmmm

Gimme the bullet.

I agree that that is the easiest way :yup: but on the other hand its not the right way!:nope:
If pain is inherently evil then so is life!

 

[blessedtoo]

Neither, if my marriage was miserable and I met another man or woman to whom I was deeply attracted, would I want to say no to an affair.
Neither, if I was failing at university and about to be kicked out, would I want to say no if my professor said he could pass me in return for a bribe.

Respectfully, these situations are in no way comparable to the scenario or the issue we are discussing.

Neither did Jesus want to die on the Cross or the Apostles to be martyred, really.

Jesus died on the Cross for our salvation. Jesus fulfilled the mission of throwing open the gates of heaven and allowing the saved to enter and be with Him and the Father. What purpose is served in the scenario presented by the OP? A man being burned to death, an unspeakable suffering, is going to die. His friend, in an act motivated by mercy and love, spares him this suffering although the end result is the same either way. His intent is not murder. His intent is to alleviate an agony none of us could ever comprehend.

Just to be clear one more time, I do not question the Church’s position on euthanasia. As I’ve stated several times, there seems little chance that a scenario like the one we are discussing would present itself to the everyday Catholic. I am seeking a deeper understanding of the culpability of one who is placed in such a dire and extraordinary situation whose only motive is to rescue someone from **inhuman **suffering.

 

[LilyM]

Respectfully, these situations are in no way comparable to the scenario or the issue we are discussing.

Jesus died on the Cross for our salvation. Jesus fulfilled the mission of throwing open the gates of heaven and allowing the saved to enter and be with Him and the Father. What purpose is served in the scenario presented by the OP? A man being burned to death, an unspeakable suffering, is going to die. His friend, in an act motivated by mercy and love, spares him this suffering although the end result is the same either way. His intent is not murder. His intent is to alleviate an agony none of us could ever comprehend.

Just to be clear one more time, I do not question the Church’s position on euthanasia. As I’ve stated several times, there seems little chance that a scenario like the one we are discussing would present itself to the everyday Catholic. I am seeking a deeper understanding of the culpability of one who is placed in such a dire and extraordinary situation whose only motive is to rescue someone from **inhuman **suffering.

The purpose of his suffering? Same as all suffering. The sanctification of his own soul. Less or no purgatory. And if he offers it up for other souls, their salvation or less/no purgatory for them too.

The culpability? Well, significantly reduced without a doubt. Always difficult for someone with no experience of such a situation to accurately gauge just what sort of reduction. And in the end it’s between the individual soul, their confessor and God.

Of course being forced to watch a friend getting roasted alive in front of you would be high on the stress-o-meter, highly likely sufficient to reduce it to a venial sin.

 

[Inego_de_Loyola]

Just to be clear one more time, I do not question the Church’s position on euthanasia. As I’ve stated several times, there seems little chance that a scenario like the one we are discussing would present itself to the everyday Catholic. I am seeking a deeper understanding of the culpability of one who is placed in such a dire and extraordinary situation whose only motive is to rescue someone from **inhuman **suffering.

I’m sorry if I have left any ambiguity in my previous posts but what occurred in the OP’s scenario is euthanasia! “Mercy killing” and euthanasia are one and the same!
You cannot distinguish between the two because there is **no difference!**To kill with the purpose of alleviating pain is euthanasia!

 

[blessedtoo]

This is an interesting debate here.

1. If you’re being attacked and your life is in danger, the Church says you can defend yourself, even if killing the attacker is necessary. Thus, would it be okay for Poe to shoot the people burning Heyward at the stake, but simply not shoot Heyward?

It seems to me that shooting the “bad guys” would be a defensive action in keeping with the quote you took from the Catechism. Shooting Heyward seems to be an offensive action, although in my mind Poe is attempting to defend his friend from the inhuman suffering he will inevitably experience. I can see that the distinction here proves one act to be objectively wrong and one justifiable. If I am involved in a car accident in which I kill someone, there will be an investigation to determine the culpability involved in the tragedy. Most likely, I will be held responsible for manslaughter, not murder. While the fact that a person has been killed can not change, the circumstances surrounding the event must be taken into account. I am just trying to understand what the Church might determine in such a situation.

I had a similar question while watching the movie “Open Water”. A young scuba diving couple are left inadvertantly by their guide boat in the ocean for 2 days. The man is attacked by sharks who are swarming around the couple for hours. He bleeds to death and the woman is left on her own, terrified as she watches the sharks becoming more and more frantic. She removes her life jacket and submerges herself in the water, clearly hoping to drown before she is taken apart limb by limb. Suicide is wrong of course, but in this extreme case, what is her culpability?

 

[maryjk]

Of course you wouldn’t.

Neither, if my marriage was miserable and I met another man or woman to whom I was deeply attracted, would I want to say no to an affair.
Neither, if I was failing at university and about to be kicked out, would I want to say no if my professor said he could pass me in return for a bribe.
Neither did Jesus want to die on the Cross or the Apostles to be martyred, really.

Moral behaviour is about doing what’s right, not just doing what you want or what feels good.

I really don’t see wanting to die a quick death rather than a long painful one similar to cheating on one’s spouse or cheating at school.

 

[Cristiano]

Shooting Heyward seems to be an offensive action, although in my mind Poe is attempting to defend his friend from the inhuman suffering he will inevitably experience.

Why do you keep calling it inhuman suffering? It is imposed by humans to humans. Hell is inhuman suffering to me, anything else could be unbearable but human. Who will suffer the really inhuman pain of hell? Look at how the first Christian martyrs felt at the idea of painful death as a way too access heaven.

 

[blessedtoo]

Why do you keep calling it inhuman suffering? It is imposed by humans to humans. Hell is inhuman suffering to me, anything else could be unbearable but human. Who will suffer the really inhuman pain of hell? Look at how the first Christian martyrs felt at the idea of painful death as a way too access heaven.

I was attempting to make a distinction between the type of suffering we all experience (alluded to by other posters) and the type of extreme agony that was presented in the OP’s scenario. I also think that although we are all fallen and prone to great evil, I do not believe that God desires humans to behave in such primitive, brutal, and barbaric ways. When humans behave like animals toward eachother, I consider that inhuman. I would put the Holocaust in that catagory as well.

 

[LilyM]

I really don’t see wanting to die a quick death rather than a long painful one similar to cheating on one’s spouse or cheating at school.

The link is that in each of these situations the ‘easier’ course, the course of least seeming suffering, would be the wrong one.

 

[Greg27]

The ethics of suicide have been debated a lot down the ages by philosopers and followers of religions, East and West.

In the Greek-Roman world, Stoic philosophers and to an extent, other Philosophers, believed it was worthwhile to die nobly and with dignity. Suicide was never encouraged where it was a method of ‘running away’ from life, its sufferings and responsibilities, but if it was commanded by a just political authority (i.e. in the cases of Socrates and Seneca) it was believed to be acceptable.

Christian theologians generally always rejected suicide, abortion and euthanasia under all circumstances and conditions, as this violated God’s laws, his creative will in making each person, the holiness of living being, and also negated God’s sovreignty over life and death. Christian philosophers generally followed the line of the theologians, and argued against any form of ‘mercy’ killing.

In the Enlightenment and afterwards, David Hume and Arthur Schopenhauer argued that suicide, while not to be encouraged, is not gravely immoral. Their reasoning was that it is pointless to accuse a dead person of a crime. In the 20th century, philosophers such as Peter Singer and others argued in some cases euthanasia should be allowed, particularly to end great suffering.

In Eastern philosophy and religion, death is generally accepted to be a fundamental feature of conditioned existence and rather than suicide, enlightenment or liberation in the sense of self-transcendence is the way to truely end suffering. This is especially the case with Buddhism, where suffering and the impermanence of conditioned existence are overcome by transcending the self or ego through meditiation resulting in transcendent wisdom (prajna) into the nature of things, which are empty of substantial existence, and also through selfless compassion and love for creatures or humans suffering in the cycle of existence. The ultimate aim is the complete union of the person with the unconditioned, which allows one to transcend individuality and regard both birth and death as illusions our minds foist on us, which through cognition divide the fundamental unity between the conditioned world of becoming and the unconditioned in itself, which is ineffable and can only be accurately ‘described’ using silence. The only ‘suicide’ in that case is the loss of the self in the Absolute, which deals with the problems suicide tries to solve without destroying life, which to Asian mystical religions is always a mortal sin which will land you in hell (but not for eternity).

Chinese religion is more pragmatic and emphasis the balance of things. Generally suicide would also be seen as an abandonment of duty, and the taking of human life for any reason is not allowed.

The modern ‘demand’ for euthanasia then can be seen as fairly much a modern phenomenon, in which quality of life emphasized along with removing suffering as much as possible through medical technology and science is emphasized. In terms of its justification from a philosophical point of view, arguments for and against could be given, but people will come to different conclusions based on their beliefs. A secular humanist may not see any problems with voluntary euthanasia, but a Catholic would clearly regard any form of euthanasia as a grave evil. At the heart of the debate are complex questions about human nature, life and its meaning, the value and dignity of a person and the holiness of life itself.