Rebecca Hamilton of
The Public Catholic asked a very good question in her article,
Two Men Euthanized in Belgium Because They Were Losing Their Sight.
"The question: When you pass laws that make your doctor your executioner, how do you ever trust your doctor again?"
Your doctor is supposed to heal you or try to to the best of his ability, not purposefully kill you. Euthanasia equals murder. Could you trust your doctor if he was euthanizing patients? There is no way in heck that I could trust my doctor if he euthanized patients.
With the news of these two men who were going blind authorizing their own assisted suicides because they couldn't bare to go blind because that would mean they couldn't see one another, this cements it firmly, we have now drastically slid fast down the slippery slope. The lack of human dignity for the human person has taken a new low. In our Godless, secular society people think it is merciful to murder. This is pitiful and makes me extremely sad because these twins weren't even in any immediate medical danger. They weren't dying. So being uncomfortable and having a disability constitutes a person's right to death? What???? This is maddening. This is absurd!! Every life is precious. It does not serve the common good for people to murder others for the harvesting of organs or for people to authorize their own assisted suicides. God is the author of all life and He alone has the authority to create and end life. It really ticks me off when people, especially scientists or doctors, play God with peoples' lives.
I have a visual impairment so this hits home for me. I would never think of ending my own life if something happened to my other eye and I went blind. Murder is the work of Satan and euthanasia is murder. Satan wants you to close off yourself to the goodness of God, to the possibility that even though you may be unable to see or have a disability you have a greater purpose to your life. You may be called to minister to those who are going through the same type of struggles or who have the same ailment as you do. You never know what God may do even if you have the faith of a mustard seed. But when a person chooses to and then goes through with assisted suicide they are closing the door to the power of the Lord's healing.
Here is one of my comments on Rebecca's article:
These twins didn’t respect the dignity of their own human bodies. Human life is precious and not to be discarded like garbage at a whim just because someone has a disability. The twins and doctor in concert with one another are acting as if they are God. They aren’t. That’s wrong. No person has the right to take another’s life just because he feels uncomfortable or he isn’t “perfect” or “normal” in his own eyes. God is the author of life and He is the only one who has the right to end life.
With the approval of the Vatican's
Declaration on Euthanasia by Blessed John Paul II the value and dignity of every human life was affirmed. Here are the points made on the value of human life:
Human life is the basis of all goods, and is the necessary source and condition of every human activity and of all society. Most people regard life as something sacred and hold that no one may dispose of it at will, but believers see in life some thing greater, namely, a gift of God's love, which they are called upon to preserve and make fruitful. And it is this latter consideration that gives rise to the following consequences:
1. No one can make an attempt on the life of an innocent person without opposing God's love for that person, without violating a fundamental right, and therefore without committing a crime of the utmost gravity.[4]
2. Everyone has the duty to lead his or her life in accordance with God's plan. That life is entrusted to the individual as a good that must bear fruit already here on earth, but that finds its full perfection only in eternal life.
3. Intentionally causing one's own death, or suicide, is therefore equally as wrong as murder; such an action on the part of a person is to be considered as a rejection of God's sovereignty and loving plan. Furthermore, suicide is also often a refusal of love for self, the denial of the natural instinct to live, a flight from the duties of justice and charity owed to one's neighbor, to various communities or to the whole of society--although, as is generally recognized, at times there are psychological factors present that can diminish responsibility or even completely remove it.
However, one must clearly distinguish suicide from that sacrifice of one's life whereby for a higher cause, such as God's glory, the salvation of souls or the service of one's brethren, a person offers his or her own life or puts it in danger (cf. Jn. 15:14).
Here the Vatican official specifically focuses on euthaniasia:
It is necessary to state firmly once more that nothing and no one can in any way permit the killing of an innocent human being, whether a fetus or an embryo, an infant or an adult, an old person, or one suffering from an incurable disease, or a person who is dying. Furthermore, no one is permitted to ask for this act of killing, either for himself or herself or for another person entrusted to his or her care, nor can he or she consent to it, either explicitly or implicitly. Nor can any authority legitimately recommend or permit such an action. For it is a question of the violation of the divine law, an offense against the dignity of the human person, a crime against life, and an attack on humanity.
It may happen that, by reason of prolonged and barely tolerable pain, for deeply personal or other reasons, people may be led to believe that they can legitimately ask for death or obtain it for others. Although in these cases the guilt of the individual may be reduced or completely absent, nevertheless the error of judgment into which the conscience falls, perhaps in good faith, does not change the nature of this act of killing, which will always be in itself something to be rejected. The pleas of gravely ill people who sometimes ask for death are not to be understood as implying a true desire for euthanasia; in fact, it is almost always a case of an anguished plea for help and love. What a sick person needs, besides medical care, is love, the human and supernatural warmth with which the sick person can and ought to be surrounded by all those close to him or her, parents and children, doctors and nurses.
The Vatican's Declaration on Euthanasia continues with an explanation on the meaning of suffering for Christians and the use of painkillers:
Death does not always come in dramatic circumstances after barely tolerable sufferings. Nor do we have to think only of extreme cases. Numerous testimonies which confirm one another lead one to the conclusion that nature itself has made provision to render more bearable at the moment of death separations that would be terribly painful to a person in full health. Hence it is that a prolonged illness, advanced old age, or a state of loneliness or neglect can bring about psychological conditions that facilitate the acceptance of death.
Nevertheless the fact remains that death, often preceded or accompanied by severe and prolonged suffering, is something which naturally causes people anguish.
Physical suffering is certainly an unavoidable element of the human condition; on the biological level, it constitutes a warning of which no one denies the usefulness; but, since it affects the human psychological makeup, it often exceeds its own biological usefulness and so can become so severe as to cause the desire to remove it at any cost.
According to Christian teaching, however, suffering, especially suffering during the last moments of life, has a special place in God's saving plan; it is in fact a sharing in Christ's passion and a union with the redeeming sacrifice which He offered in obedience to the Father's will. Therefore, one must not be surprised if some Christians prefer to moderate their use of painkillers, in order to accept voluntarily at least a part of their sufferings and thus associate themselves in a conscious way with the sufferings of Christ crucified (cf. Mt. 27:34). Nevertheless it would be imprudent to impose a heroic way of acting as a general rule. On the contrary, human and Christian prudence suggest for the majority of sick people the use of medicines capable of alleviating or suppressing pain, even though these may cause as a secondary effect semi-consciousness and reduced lucidity. As for those who are not in a state to express themselves, one can reasonably presume that they wish to take these painkillers, and have them administered according to the doctor's advice.
But the intensive use of painkillers is not without difficulties, because the phenomenon of habituation generally makes it necessary to increase their dosage in order to maintain their efficacy. At this point it is fitting to recall a declaration by Pius XII, which retains its full force; in answer to a group of doctors who had put the question: "Is the suppression of pain and consciousness by the use of narcotics...permitted by religion and morality to the doctor and the patient (even at the approach of death and if one foresees that the use of narcotics will shorten life)?" the Pope said: "If no other means exist, and if, in the given circumstances, this does not prevent the carrying out of other religious and moral duties: Yes."[5] In this case, of course, death is in no way intended or sought, even if the risk of it is reasonably taken; the intention is simply to relieve pain effectively, using for this purpose painkillers available to medicine.
However, painkillers that cause unconsciousness need special consideration. For a person not only has to be able to satisfy his or her moral duties and family obligations; he or she also has to prepare himself or herself with full consciousness for meeting Christ. Thus Pius XII warns: "It is not right to deprive the dying person of consciousness without a serious reason."[6]
We are called to offer up our sufferings in union with Jesus Christ. This is called redemptive suffering.
A post-apocalyptic role-playing game set in a bombed-out, futuristic Washington, D.C. known as the Capitol Wasteland. Warring tribes of wannabe authority figures fight for control, thugs and scammers try to take your guns and your money at every turn, super-intelligent robots try to reengineer society, and the whole place is overrun with super-mutants. In other words, it’s a lot like the Washington, D.C. we all know and love today.
L.A. Noire
Deux Ex: Human Revolution