Medical euthanasia?

[Swordman]

I wanted to get some opinions here. I am pro-life, embracing more than just an anti-abortion position. I even resist capital punishment, except in extreme cases. So I wanted to run a recent situation by this group.

My mother-in-law died last Sunday at the age of 94. She had a long life and we celebrated it two days ago.

However, at the dinner after the memorial service my brother-in-law, a pastor and ex-hospital chaplain, mentioned that the hospital had given her a combination of drugs that he labeled as a "death cocktail." While she probably would have died within a week more, and she was in pain, this accelerated the process.

What are your thoughts on this? This seems to be a common process. (We both found it troubling.)

 

[JoshebB]

Do I have to use medicine to put someone out of my misery? (asking for a friend)


This "death cocktail" may have been a mixture of analgesics, not something causing death, although the "she would have died anyway" is code for "I killed," hiding behind the guise of "in my speculative opinion she would have died in a week." The larger reality is 1) 94 years old is very old and 2) modern medicine prolongs people's lives well beyond any normal where treatment is lacking. In the past, high cholesterol or triglycerides has contributed to the death of many an old person. Give a person a statin and extend their life long enough for degenerative neuropathy to set ( a potential side-effect of long-term statin usage) and then prescribe medication to treat the symptom-turned-diagnosis and call it a life-saving measure. Add some pain killers a week before they die, and it's called mercy.

All rhetoric aside, the point is the entire debate exists in a skewed context.

If no medical care is provided most of us would be dead long before we will die. My father-in-law had a barely functional heart, but implanted pacemaker and defibrillator saved his life on multiple occasions when he would have otherwise died. He dropped me off at my office one time so I could retrieve my laptop, and when I returned to the car, he was convulsing due to the defibrillator firing. Without those devices I'd have returned to a corpse. Years later, when he caught COVID-19, his condition rapidly deteriorated and analgesics were prescribed to make him "comfortable." The opiates likely hastened his demise.... but, man, did he feel good going .

My mom is 90 and she can't remember what happened ten minutes ago. She's always been willing to aggress verbally, but now she's downright ornery; so bad it's hard to find any care takers. They won't admit it, but I can probably find a dozen caretakers (and a few family members) who think the world would be a better place without her. Afterall, she's not going to remember. I'm 65 and I ache all over most of the time. I make audible noise when I move. If I focus on that I say, "Put me out of my misery. Here I come, Jesus! Let's get that glorified body thing started!" But if I look a lifetime of changes others' lives for the better knowing I may have another decade or two to do more of that, then I'm putting on my britches and leaving an empty gown on the gurney. I'll take the aches and pain, thank you.

But then again, cancer is not ravaging my insides, my pancreas isn't shutting down, my colon is still intact, and I don't have defibrillator repeatedly shocking me. I was raised in the country and when the dog got sick a bullet was used. I put my favorite dog, Tulio, down two years ago, at the vets and it was quiet and peaceful. I felt sad . Never felt that way about any other pet (dog or otherwise). Maybe I should have shot him, spared myself the grief, and taken comfort I had..... put him out of both our misery.


The paradox of Christianity is that Jesus committed suicide, and his Father hastened his demise . That does not mean we have license to do likewise . So, I'm inclined to say none of us know the answer; we just have opinions and all of them are biased and circumstantial.

This seems to be a common process. (We both found it troubling.)

Before doctors existed, there were shamans and priests. They've been "making people feel comfortable" for millennia. They simply did so without first-world ethics prompting debate.

 

[Swordman]

Thanks for the thoughts. These are certainly things to think about.

 

[MTMattie]

I wanted to get some opinions here. I am pro-life, embracing more than just an anti-abortion position. I even resist capital punishment, except in extreme cases. So I wanted to run a recent situation by this group.

My mother-in-law died last Sunday at the age of 94. She had a long life and we celebrated it two days ago.

However, at the dinner after the memorial service my brother-in-law, a pastor and ex-hospital chaplain, mentioned that the hospital had given her a combination of drugs that he labeled as a "death cocktail." While she probably would have died within a week more, and she was in pain, this accelerated the process.

What are your thoughts on this? This seems to be a common process. (We both found it troubling.)

It is not up to man to interfere with the appointed time of anyone's death.

Capital punishment though is another matter for as was in the OT a lot, even God gave orders to stone and kill for various reasons.

A baby is a life. When it was conceived I believe is when God pit the soul/spirit into that little one. I have trouble with the idea of abortion
for any reason, though rape... there should never be a time when a woman cannot get the morning after pill to actually stop the conception...

I would say the same for incest, if possible, but I can see sticking points there. But it still is a child that has come into being from God, and would rather adoption be the norm then abortion.

As to the health of the mother. I cant specifically call that one either way. I easily see both sides... but God wont.

As to medically induced euthanasia...

I just lost my 90 year old mother who had been declining under dementia badly this year. (Was going on for years)
Due to a fall and ending up in a therapy home for a few weeks then and assisted care memory unit home to another few weeks
her decline was so rapid, and I found myself asking God to take her home.... daily while in the therapy place.

I knew it was just a matter of time but would have been appalled for her to have been "taken out" as it were.

I encouraged and approved their use of medicine to keep her as much out of pain and comfortable as possible. And the last day of her life, knowing she was on rapid decline, I saw her and said my goodbyes and told her is was alright for her to go

The hospice nurse said checked her vitals while I was there and all wan good except no pulse in her right leg. Her BP was 141/70
.Though her oxygen was 88.

The nurse explained she though it could or would be days, even possibly 2 weeks before she would die. Then later a friend stopped to see her after work and held her hand. It was about 6:30 when he called me to say her pulse was very weak.
And it was just about 2 hours later, at 8:40 that night I got the call that she had passed.

God's timing? My permission to her that she could go? or both. But I would personally have reported to the authorities if I had thought anyone had given her a shot.