B
Biggie
Guest
apnews.myway.com/article/20090523/D98BUEG80.html
So … she wanted to be “clear-headed” at death. Does that make sense or am I missing something?
- Status
So … she wanted to be “clear-headed” at death. Does that make sense or am I missing something?
A
apromisemade
Guest
She wanted to be mentally present and at peace as she transitioned out of this life. Perhaps she wanted to be able to be conciouss of her loved ones that were with her and the beautiful things around her on her last day.
I can certainly relate.
I can certainly relate.
R
Rachel84
Guest
Dont get me wrong, I am against suicide…but this new suicide law just sounds like another service that the government can charge for. I mean, if someone really wanted to kill themselves they could do it without the governments “help.”
A
apromisemade
Guest
It’s got nothing to do with the goverment. You go to the doctor and get a perscription for lethal drugs. It no more benefitial to the goverment than someone filling a perscription for heart medicine, except it’s a one time thing.
I’ve been suicidal in the sense that you are refering to, attempted it twice actually. It’s a very different place than what this woman is describing. Ending your life with the drugs the doctor would give you is foolproof and leaves the body more or less intact for burial, it’s far more peaceful and dignified than many of the more “traditional” methods.
B
Biggie
Guest
So to be clear, it makes sense to you that a person wants to be conscious her loved ones were with her so that she can then consciously betray her loved ones by her final act in life, leaving them with the uncertainty that she will rest in the Lord’s bosom? Where is she taking that consciousness? Might her last days have been more about them than about her wishes for herself?
A
apromisemade
Guest
If a person is going to die regardless, why shouldn’t they be able to chose* how* they die. I have heard many instances where families of people who chose doctor assisted suicide, whilst heartbroken their loved one is going to be leaving them, were fully supportive of their family members decision to die in a way that gave them peace.
It would be a very selfish person indeed that would want a member of their family to waste away and suffer needlessly against said family members wishes soley for their own comfort rather than allow that person to let go of this life peacefully and comfortably if that was their wish. It’s seems a bit judgemental to call someone on deaths door selfish by making such a decision.
B
Benadam
Guest
for a Catholic the source of life is the Sacraments. The Sacraments support a life that embraces the cross and is renewed in it’s power. Our suffering joined to Christ and because we are members of His Body we participate in His redemptive suffering. The final throws of this earthly life is ‘our’ personal passion, our suffering at death is without doubt our last opportunity to suffer redemptively to join Christ at the foot of the cross, for our souls and the souls of others.
I have no doubt their are souls in heaven that were reconciled to God through the suffering they experienced at their death. Saved by Divine Providence. Saved because their death’s were open to God’s ordering rather than their own.
This woman may God have mercy on her, continued to build her heaven here, on earth, to her dying act. May God not hold her to her own designs.
I have no doubt their are souls in heaven that were reconciled to God through the suffering they experienced at their death. Saved by Divine Providence. Saved because their death’s were open to God’s ordering rather than their own.
This woman may God have mercy on her, continued to build her heaven here, on earth, to her dying act. May God not hold her to her own designs.
C
Christy_Beth
Guest
How a person dies does matter. Ever hear of “suicide by cop”? One person wants to die, but doesn’t have the guts to do it themselves, so they cause a situation that calls for police intervention. Then they threaten or attempt to harm the officer. If the cop decides that his, or someone else’'s, life is in danger, he is allow to shoot the “problem” person.
So, do you want to say that murder is ok? After all, someone dies, and if it doesn’t matter how, that’s quite ok. Right?
So, do you want to say that murder is ok? After all, someone dies, and if it doesn’t matter how, that’s quite ok. Right?
B
Biggie
Guest
If a person cannot choose not to die, what empowers him to choose how to die? I would assume the loved ones would be supportive if God changed his mind and decided that it was not time for the person to die at all. So are the loved ones or the afflicted person either one empowered to permit the person to live?
And does not the fact that God has permitted the person’s death indicate there is a greater ill than death itself? What is the message of the suicidal death? Is it not a rebellion against the conditions of one’s own life? Is it not a supremely selfish act which says “I am the one that matters in the end” ?
What is the message of a person’s life to loved one’s? Is it that by squarely facing impossible difficulties with courage and steadfastness to the end one triumphs? Is it that victory is not apparent, is not material, but exists nonetheless? Or is it that when things get bad enough no value can be supported, no virtue need be defended?
B
Benadam
Guest
E
Elizabeth502
Guest
I cannot agree more with this, which is why I am passionately against any form of assisted suicide: it’s conspiring with the devil to rob a human being of possibly the best opportunity that person has had, to surrender.
Benadam, I don’t know that the woman wanted to build her heaven on earth; but clearly what she wanted was control. She said it herself: she wanted to hold onto consciousness for as long as possible, and death brings loss of consciousness. Death is terrifying. Why? Mostly – even when not accompanied by excruciating pain – because it is defined by two things: loss of control (the hour, the process) and entrance into the unknown. I think it’s really evil to “assist” people to refuse the sanctifying moment of release into the unknown. This holds for non-believing “assistants” as well, and non-believing subjects. This woman says she is “spiritual.” Lots of people who are “spiritual” without an affiliation or a convicted belief in a personal God, nevertheless tentatively believe that there is an afterlife and have, or want to have, an openness about that.
Those who love such people should want to “assist” them to let…it…go. Letting go is precisely what death is. The more a person is able to let go (what this woman was terrified of) the more peaceful the death is.Those who hold onto life in the face of death’s inevitability find death psychologically torturous. Hospice workers with no beliefs have as their primary mission to assist the dying in letting go (through the natural process, not by artificially hurrying it along).
It is very natural to be afraid of death: even very holy people can be very scared. I know a wonderful – now elderly himself – priest, who obviously from his age has been at the bedside of many a dying person. Many of these have been religious themselves. He said a few years ago, “I have never watched anyone die who isn’t afraid.”
We owe the dying person comfort, support, and asistance in the process of surrender. I think benadam’s statement about the last redemptive opportunity is profound. Fr. Corapi has spoken similarly about that last opportunity which he has witnessed as a sometimes unique sanctifying moment.
B
Biggie
Guest
Some may have been fortunate enough to have had the last words of a father to them being, “I love you.” Now a father says, “I love you” and then takes his own life. On the other hand, in a final moment of clarity before succumbing to cancer, a father says, “I love you.”
Is there not a substantive difference between the two?
Is there not a substantive difference between the two?
B
Benadam
Guest
A
apromisemade
Guest
It’s easy enough to say that the nobler and more honorable thing in such a situation would be to hold on to life for as long as possible and bear any suffering with grace and strength.
But I truly believe you can never know what you would think, feel, or do until you are the one with a doctor looking you in the eye telling you you have less than six months left to live.
B
Belle777
Guest
I actually think this and abortion should be the biggest issues with laws in America and around the world.
Killing anybody is wrong, even yourself.
I understand that it is very hard to live life when you’re suffering.
I suffer from a severe depression that makes me want to kill myself.
I’m told that’s wrong, that it’s part of my mental illness.
See the problem here?
Killing anybody is wrong, even yourself.
I understand that it is very hard to live life when you’re suffering.
I suffer from a severe depression that makes me want to kill myself.
I’m told that’s wrong, that it’s part of my mental illness.
See the problem here?
B
Biggie
Guest
And so it is incredible to me that those favoring such legislation present the sham that the person making the decision is making an informed, free choice. It is precisely because one recognizes the duress and emotion involved that the law must obviate the decision to end one’s life by prohibiting it.
B
Biggie
Guest
And if you accept your angst and depression as a crucifixion of your mind and persevere, then you are sharing something rare and unique with Our Lord, something that He understands perfectly.
C
Cluny
Guest
It starts off as “death with dignity” and the “right to die.”
The next step is feeling that one has a moral obligation to die to “save the family and loved ones from the suffering of a protracted last illness.”
The final step is the government offering deadly medication because it is simply not “cost effective” to continue treatment.
Euthanasia as a treatment for depression is already legal in the Netherlands.
And so the “right to die” becomes the “duty to die.”
And remember when the siren song was “choice,” its singers claimed that there was no connection with euthanasia?
The next step is feeling that one has a moral obligation to die to “save the family and loved ones from the suffering of a protracted last illness.”
The final step is the government offering deadly medication because it is simply not “cost effective” to continue treatment.
Euthanasia as a treatment for depression is already legal in the Netherlands.
And so the “right to die” becomes the “duty to die.”
And remember when the siren song was “choice,” its singers claimed that there was no connection with euthanasia?
C
Cluny
Guest
Dear soul, I suffer from clinical depression as well–suffered from it for years.
Please believe me–it’s not YOU wanting to die. It’s the disease talking.
You really want to live–just not like this.
I know. I’ve been there.
B
Biggie
Guest
Excellent and concise. Exactly right.
- Status