The Top 10 Reasons Why Euthanasia Is Wrong

[cathode]

I just made a video explaining why Euthanasia / assisted suicide is wrong. I notice that many Christians and even Catholics find difficulty explaining why assisted suicide is wrong, which is allowing euthanasia legislation to creep into countries across the world, including my own country, the UK, which is forecast to debate euthanasia legislation in Parliament again in a few months time. I hope this is useful and would like to know your thoughts on the video. Thanks. Julian.

youtube.com/watch?v=EIhTvE1sKEY

 

[seagal]

A very strong video and very chilling. Thank you for creating and sharing.

 

[cathode]

A very strong video and very chilling. Thank you for creating and sharing.

Thank you for your comment. I’m glad it helped. Euthanasia is very chilling and just like with abortion, its advocates don’t want to talk about what it is really like and what its tragic consequences for society really are.

 

[Johann_du_Toit]

Good video. But everything a Catholic needs to know about euthanasia is already contained in the 5th Commandment.

 

[cathode]

Good video. But everything a Catholic needs to know about euthanasia is already contained in the 5th Commandment.

Thanks for your comment. I agree obviously. I think that a lot of people find difficultly explaining this to atheists and secularists who are usually the main proponents of euthanasia around the world. That’s why I put some other reasons too, but yes I agree with that obviously.

 

[ChurchSoldier]

Thanks. Good points.

I find it quite curious many people of faith don’t see the forces working for the legalization euthanasia and assisted suicide.

 

[cathode]

Thanks. Good points.

I find it quite curious many people of faith don’t see the forces working for the legalization euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Thank you. They ought to. The same people that call for abortion under a pseudo-compassion for struggling mothers are the same people calling for euthanasia under a pseudo-compassion for struggling elderly. Something I didn’t mention in my video was that the Nazi concentration camps started out as euthanasia centres, where the patients initially consented. I would probably get accused of Godwinning the discussion, but it does show, along with the statistics from Belgium and Holland, that euthanasia is terrifyingly deadly.

 

[dmar198]

I just made a video explaining why Euthanasia / assisted suicide is wrong. I notice that many Christians and even Catholics find difficulty explaining why assisted suicide is wrong, which is allowing euthanasia legislation to creep into countries across the world, including my own country, the UK, which is forecast to debate euthanasia legislation in Parliament again in a few months time. I hope this is useful and would like to know your thoughts on the video. Thanks. Julian.

youtube.com/watch?v=EIhTvE1sKEY

That is really an excellent video. I think it is especially praiseworthy because it deals with an issue that is really on peoples’ minds. Back in the early 1900s, the Catholic Evidence Guild was formed to reinvigorate Catholic apologetics. In Catholic universities, apologetics was studied, but the topics discussed in class were generally not the topics discussed on the streets by ordinary people. The Catholic Evidence Guild wanted to change that by addressing the issues non-Catholics actually gave for not being Catholic. It looks like your video fits well within that tradition. Good effort!

 

[stavros388]

First of all, the video is very well made and your points are well presented. However, the main thing that your video doesn’t seem to take into account is the choice of the sufferer to live or not to live. In my opinion, there is no special courage in waiting to die for the terminally ill. When one is dying, one HAS to give up the fight. After awhile, I think there is more courage in letting go of life rather than “continuing to bravely fight to the end”. Fight for what, exactly? Dying is, alas, an inescapable fact of life. There is nothing ‘noble’ about an ALS patient waiting around until the moment he or she inevitably chokes to death. Is there? There is nothing courageous about requiring more and more morphine to subdue the increasing pain of a terminal pancreatic cancer patient in order to allow them to ‘naturally’ starve to death (and thereby prolong their suffering and the horrific degradation loved ones must sit by and endure). Also, what people value as life, from the perspective of a dying or suffering individual, may not be much of a life whatsoever. Death is better than some things to some people. And ultimately, you cannot tell someone else they are wrong when they insist that: “Enough is enough; I do not want to suffer any longer.”

Again, you raise good points. I agree with many of the possible dangers and abuses you point out. Safe guards and a strict and sound process involving legal and medical professionals would have to be implemented. And as with anything else, there would be problems and abuses (ideally these would be very rare). But ultimately, no one’s ideas of courage and dignity and dying should dictate to another person having both different views and an individual, experiential threshold for suffering that they alone can truly understand, how they must die. Respectfully, that alone ultimately trumps all ten of your well-thought out and carefully articulated reasons, in my honest opinion. Terminally ill patients of sound mind should have the right to medically assisted death (which they often unknowingly receive, anyway, as palliative care nurses crank up the drugs in order to speed up an already advanced process of dying). And terminally ill patients should have the right to die naturally if they truly believe it is worthwhile for them (or that it will perhaps appease their notion of God). No one set of beliefs should be imposed on any individual when dealing with such an important and individually unique matter as dying, (especially in a secular and democratic society). My opinion is not always popular, but having lost both parents and three grandparents in the last six years, and spent a good deal of time around dying and suffering people, I don’t think good palliative care is always enough (although it can and should continually be improved upon)!

But thanks for sharing your video. It is very important to consider this issue from all sides.

 

[cathode]

That is really an excellent video. I think it is especially praiseworthy because it deals with an issue that is really on peoples’ minds. Back in the early 1900s, the Catholic Evidence Guild was formed to reinvigorate Catholic apologetics. In Catholic universities, apologetics was studied, but the topics discussed in class were generally not the topics discussed on the streets by ordinary people. The Catholic Evidence Guild wanted to change that by addressing the issues non-Catholics actually gave for not being Catholic. It looks like your video fits well within that tradition. Good effort!

Thank you. My next video will be on the Top 10 Reasons why I believe in God.

 

[cathode]

First of all, the video is very well made and your points are well presented. However, the main thing that your video doesn’t seem to take into account is the choice of the sufferer to live or not to live. In my opinion, there is no special courage in waiting to die for the terminally ill. When one is dying, one HAS to give up the fight. After awhile, I think there is more courage in letting go of life rather than “continuing to bravely fight to the end”. Fight for what, exactly? Dying is, alas, an inescapable fact of life. There is nothing ‘noble’ about an ALS patient waiting around until the moment he or she inevitably chokes to death. Is there? There is nothing courageous about requiring more and more morphine to subdue the increasing pain of a terminal pancreatic cancer patient in order to allow them to ‘naturally’ starve to death (and thereby prolong their suffering and the horrific degradation loved ones must sit by and endure). Also, what people value as life, from the perspective of a dying or suffering individual, may not be much of a life whatsoever. Death is better than some things to some people. And ultimately, you cannot tell someone else they are wrong when they insist that: “Enough is enough; I do not want to suffer any longer.”

Again, you raise good points. I agree with many of the possible dangers and abuses you point out. Safe guards and a strict and sound process involving legal and medical professionals would have to be implemented. And as with anything else, there would be problems and abuses (ideally these would be very rare). But ultimately, no one’s ideas of courage and dignity and dying should dictate to another person having both different views and an individual, experiential threshold for suffering that they alone can truly understand, how they must die. Respectfully, that alone ultimately trumps all ten of your well-thought out and carefully articulated reasons, in my honest opinion. Terminally ill patients of sound mind should have the right to medically assisted death (which they often unknowingly receive, anyway, as palliative care nurses crank up the drugs in order to speed up an already advanced process of dying). And terminally ill patients should have the right to die naturally if they truly believe it is worthwhile for them (or that it will perhaps appease their notion of God). No one set of beliefs should be imposed on any individual when dealing with such an important and individually unique matter as dying, (especially in a secular and democratic society). My opinion is not always popular, but having lost both parents and three grandparents in the last six years, and spent a good deal of time around dying and suffering people, I don’t think good palliative care is always enough (although it can and should continually be improved upon)!

But thanks for sharing your video. It is very important to consider this issue from all sides.

Thank you for your comment. What I would say in response is that all the “safeguards” in Belgium, Holland and Switzerland have completely and immeasurably failed, with tragic consequences for their societies. Thousands of people have been murdered beyond their consent in the name of euthanasia in all of these countries, with many who are suffering from non-terminal illnesses also requesting to be killed. Just like with abortion, what starts out as being allowed only for extreme circumstances, like only when the mother’s health is in danger, blows up and becomes the norm, where now 1.3 billion children have been aborted in just 35 years.

What I am trying to ask in this video is, as a society, we either accept suicide as a “valid choice” of death where those who want to commit suicide do so to end their suffering and say “enough is enough”, or we don’t accept suicide. Either we as a society accept suicide AND assisted suicide as valid choices of death as a society or we don’t accept either of them. But suicide is a grave evil as we should not take anyone’s life, including our own, which ought to be discouraged as fiercely as possible. You do not eliminate suffering by eliminating the sufferer. Assisted suicide as mentioned in the video, is not about the “right to die” but importantly, about a doctor’s “right to kill”. Doctors are supposed to save lives, not end them.

I understand the hard suffering that many with terminal illnesses have. But better care, treatments and cures are the answer. Not euthanasia. As shown with the abortion of 90% of all Down Syndrome babies, the focus is now on eradicating those with Down Syndrome instead of focusing on finding a cure for Down Syndrome. The same will happen with euthanasia being the norm for people with “difficult” conditions.

Many many people want to fight for their lives. Look at Michael Schumacher and how millions of people want him to recover from his coma. He’s been fighting for almost a year now in that coma, and his fans certainly don’t want him to just give up, even if that means he will never be the same man he was. That’s because human life is precious.

Your “choice” to be killed by euthanasia will ultimately become your “duty to be killed”. The hospitals, the government, the research companies will all have a vested interest in having you killed, if they have the “choice”. It’s much cheaper for them. That is the scary reality of euthanasia.

 

[DavidFilmer]

The video is outstanding in content but too slow-paced.

Some people might not know that you can speed up a YouTube video. Click the gear icon in the lower right of the player window. I found that 1.5x was just about right for this video. That allows me to watch the nine-minute video in 6:45.

 

[stavros388]

Thanks for your thoughtful reply.

Regarding this:

“… all the “safeguards” in Belgium, Holland and Switzerland have completely and immeasurably failed, with tragic consequences for their societies. Thousands of people have been murdered beyond their consent in the name of euthanasia in all of these countries…”

Can you please refer me to the source (or sources) of this data? I am not trying to be antagonistic, but would very much like to look closely at this information.

“Either we as a society accept suicide AND assisted suicide as valid choices of death as a society or we don’t accept either of them.”

I don’t agree with this. I do not think the issue is nearly as black and white as you present it here. Suicide, first of all, will continue to occur whether we as a society accept it or not. And easing or accelerating someone’s imminent passing (as is already done, I suspect, much more often than we know, on the sly by merciful care workers) is a much different situation with different variables. Our medical system in fact causes a lot of avoidable suffering because it has always, without question, tried to prolong life. I have recently read articles stating that many doctors in fact opt out of life prolonging measures for themselves because it often just prolongs the agony of the sufferer and puts off what some would see as a timely death. It is time we talk about not just life as something precious (which I agree it is), but also quality of life. We should not automatically assume more life (prolonging life, that is) is always better. What is ‘natural’ death? Most people would probably be dead by 30 or 40 without some kind of medical intervention, many which have only been possible very recently. These are important things to consider.

I think it should come down not to a societal choice of how people must die, but a societal agreement to allow people with unbearable (by their own accounts) suffering and/or a terminal conditions, the choice of how they would like to die… For example: Rolling around in their own feces mumbling morphine-induced gibberish until they literally die of starvation? Or saying a lucid and final goodbye to loved ones at their bedside and then quietly passing on with medical assistance?

Now, I have not considered euthanasia so much, as in killing someone in a coma or people who cannot speak for themselves. I am aware of the slippery slope argument, and think it is a true cause for concern. And that is why I appreciate some of the information and arguments you and others share. But just to be clear, at this point in time, I only support patients of sound mind and medically verifiable suffering (which the patient deems unbearable) and/or a terminal condition, legally having the right to have their lives and suffering cut short in a humane way.

But again, I appreciate your careful consideration of the dangers, which I will also continue to reflect on.

 

[cathode]

The video is outstanding in content but too slow-paced.

Some people might not know that you can speed up a YouTube video. Click the gear icon in the lower right of the player window. I found that 1.5x was just about right for this video. That allows me to watch the nine-minute video in 6:45.

Thank you very much. Yep, I often speed up other people’s videos as well when I watch them too.

 

[cathode]

Thanks for your thoughtful reply.

Regarding this:

Can you please refer me to the source (or sources) of this data? I am not trying to be antagonistic, but would very much like to look closely at this information.

Here are some links which describe the calamity these countries now face regarding euthanasia and assisted suicide. They obviously didn’t want these calamities, but that is part of allowing the principle of a doctor to kill you, with or without your consent, which euthanasia does. The safeguards to allow euthanasia “only” for a “terminal illness” and “only” for someone “truly suffering” opens it up to a very large number of people, with tragic consequences for society as a result.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3070710/
dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1285423/Half-Belgiums-euthanasia-nurses-admit-killing-consent.html
lifenews.com/2012/07/04/thousands-in-netherlands-die-without-consent-since-euthanasia-ok/

Just because people commit suicide does not mean it is morally right, nor that it should be legalised or encouraged at all. People murder others, independent of whether murder is illegal, but that does not mean that murder should become legal because people still break the law, surely?

I’ve no objection to end-of-life care which is similar to palliative care, which helps reduce suffering from people at the point of death. If it is clear someone is about to die, I don’t think their pain should excessively be extended. That is the teaching of double effect, which the Church teaches, regarding that medicines can be used to reduce suffering of a terminally ill patient, which may ultimately shorten their life. The focus is on reducing their suffering and not ending their life. This is palliative care and not euthanasia. The problem with euthanasia is that it has already shown itself to be focused on ending people’s lives, under the guise of reducing suffering, of even otherwise healthy people, which is why it is wrong.

I understand the pain involved in seeing a terminally-ill person die. But there’s a reason that euthanasia has always been opposed throughout history. We’ve always had lethal drugs that could kill people immediately but the advanced societies never used them on patients, even if they asked, because they knew that by doing so, their focus as medical professionals would shift from saving lives to working out how to end them. And this was before the palliative care techniques now in operation even existed. Doctors throughout history have recognised that euthanasia ultimately leads to the dire situations we now have in Belgium, Holland and Switzerland. We didn’t need these societies to plumb these depths to know what the consequences of euthanasia, voluntary or involuntary, would be.

Your final paragraph illustrates the whole issue with euthanasia succintly. How do you determine who is “of sound mind”? 20% of those who choose euthanasia in Holland receive undue pressure from family members to have themselves killed, many of those certainly for financial reasons.

And everyone on the planet has “medically verifiable suffering”, of one form or another. I have asthma and some skin conditions, which are obviously treatable but are forms of suffering. Equally in Switzerland, thousands are killing themselves with treatable illnesses like arthritis, kidney disease, or Parkinson’s disease. If it’s OK for them to have themselves killed, why isn’t it OK for anybody with any illness they say is “too much for them”, to have themselves killed too? Either we as a society accept suicide in all its forms, or reject suicide in all its forms.

Lastly, you then say, “and/or a terminal condition”. This is a contradiction of what you said previously that only people with terminal illnesses should be allowed to kill themselves. By mistake almost, even in your post, you have naturally included people of “medically verifiable suffering” to have the right to be killed, the same sort of mentality that is leading thousands to be killed for all manner of treatable conditions, because “they want to” be killed. That is the true danger of euthanasia.

 

[ChurchSoldier]

The video is outstanding in content but too slow-paced.

Some people might not know that you can speed up a YouTube video. Click the gear icon in the lower right of the player window. I found that 1.5x was just about right for this video. That allows me to watch the nine-minute video in 6:45.

Thanks. Didn’t know that.

 

[seagal]

Thanks. Didn’t know that.

I don’t see an option for speed under the gear icon. I get Autoplay, Annotations, Subtitles and Quality (which is resolution only).

 

[stavros388]

Lastly, you then say, “and/or a terminal condition”. This is a contradiction of what you said previously that only people with terminal illnesses should be allowed to kill themselves. By mistake almost, even in your post, you have naturally included people of “medically verifiable suffering” to have the right to be killed, the same sort of mentality that is leading thousands to be killed for all manner of treatable conditions, because “they want to” be killed. That is the true danger of euthanasia.

Okay, you’ve helped me decide to retract my “and/or” in that statement and instead stick with “and”. I don’t think anyone who deems their suffering to be too great to endure (think, brittle bone disease or something equally incurable and painful) should have to. But then again… you certainly have me thinking how trying to ‘draw the line’ on such things would lead to abuses and a growing acceptance of suicide as an everyday option. Perhaps trying to draw the line on what suffering is “unbearable” is just something we cannot and should not do as a society.

Suicide should of course not be encouraged. Yet, it is one person’s choice; It is his or her pain, be it existential, physical, or what have you. And ultimately the question for one person is, really, whether it is worthwhile to continue to be or not. But you really have me thinking about how - while some desperate people will continue to take their lives regardless - opening the door to a societal acceptance of suicide as an option could have very dire, long term repercussions. Admittedly, I have been looking at this from more of an individual and experiential perspective than an overarching societal one. This is, no doubt, due in part because of personal experiences with suffering and dying loved ones.

I haven’t had a chance to look at the links you’ve provided yet. But I thank you for taking the time to provide them and will be sure to visit them at an opportune time.

I appreciate your thoughtful analysis of this issue. You quite honestly have me rethinking - or at least considering more carefully - precisely where I stand on these matters.