Why is the religiuos right so against physician assisted suicide

What's great about it? I read it as tradition trumps common sense and compassion. What if the terminally ill patient isn't southern baptist? Should they by law have to subscribe to Fred's beliefs.

 

Fred and I share the same definition of 'compassion'. I guess that's all I was saying. He and I have both cared for people who were dying, so we share that perspective to some degree.

 

To go in the extreme opposite direction.

I have an aunt that is in very bad shape. All kinds of problems. She is in her 80's. She went to live with her daughter a couple of years ago because she got so bad she couldn't take care of herself. Well the daughter is a religious nut and decided that she needed to get her mom off those pain pills she was 'getting addicted to them'. The daughter doesn't believe in giving medicine. Well now my aunt has gotten so bad that her daughter can't sleep at night for her mother moaning and calling out to her all night and all day long. My aunt only sleeps sporadically for short naps on and off day and night. I guess her daughter doesn't even believe in sleeping pills.

The daughter called my mother ( her mother's sister) the other day complaining that she was going absolutely crazy because my aunt constant calling out and not sleeping at night. My mother wanted to tell her it was no damn wonder because she took all her medicine away.

This daughter also promised her father which was a very strict freewill Baptist preacher that she would never put her mother in a nursing home. I guess they were afraid she wouldn't get good care at the nursing home and God forbid they might give her medicine.

But I feel so sorry for my aunt having to live out the rest of her life like this. It's breaking my mom's heart.

 

I hate to hear stuff like that. That's neurotic religious dogma run amok. "Live long and suffer."

 

In that situation, the daughter should be assisted to die. Just kidding. Seriously, though, there are laws against elder abuse and they typically include the denial of needed medical care and medicine.

 

It's somewhat of a different ballgame depending on whether the person who wishes to die is conscious or not. Yeah, Fred's right, if they're unconscious, then it's gonna get ugly in most families. Even if there's a living will, the living will left some ambiguities or some family members cannot separate their desire to hold onto the patient at all costs from the desire to have the patient's own wishes followed. Even then, though, there seems to be more of a willingness to perceive assisted suicide as mercy in this situation.

When someone is conscious, however, there seems to be less support. Perhaps the unconscious person more resembles death and it's easier to let go.

I don't have any facts to back up my assertion, I'm just judging from the way it is presented in the news and what I have perceived as public opinion.

Collin does bring up a valid point about depression. I work with mentally ill persons on a regular basis who have suicidal tendecies/ideation. Any situation where a person is seeking assisted suicide should be assessed first to see if psychotropic medicine can relieve the suicidal thoughts. I'm not saying dope 'em up 'til they change their mind, but a serious mental health evaluation should be considered. I would assume any doctor who has gone forward with such a thing has done so.

 

I don't know of a religion that's against medicine except Christian Scienctest (sp) But I think being a Christian I also think we shouldn't step in and get in the way of God's plan. I wouldn't know what his plan for this person is, or if he's planning to work on someone else thru someone who is terminal.
But I agree, its a slipperly slope.

 

she's in her 80's for God's sake! Big deal if she gets "addicted" to pain pills.

Buddha taught that one of our goals in life should be to help relieve the suffering of others. According to this type of Christian, God/Jesus believes in intentional prolonged suffering.

 

Even I think that is stupid. There is no way an elderly person who is in a lot of pain should be put in that situation. Show me in the bible where there is anything to support that.

 

I was wrong in saying the daughter doesn't believe in ANY medicine. She takes her mom to the doctor and I think she is on medication for like her blood pressure or say if she had some kind of infection or something she would give her antibiotics. But she does NOT believe in drugs that does not have the purpose of healing or treating a medical condition. If it alters the mind then it's bad. If they are narcotic or amphetimines or whatever then they are bad bad bad.

My aunt's biggest problem is arthritis. Over the years she has had both hips replaced, both knees and one shoulder. It got so bad that she was confined to a wheelchair a couple of years ago and now she is practically bedridden.