Hold on. If someone commits a violent crime using a weapon against another. They should receive the same.
Simple.
Some will judge her harshly for seeming to ‘hasten death’s hand’, but I don’t. If the brain cancer continues as expected, she will have an existence encumbered by extreme, unrelenting pain, that or stay morphined up around the clock. I’m not in that situation, and hope to never be in it.
Anyone been hunting? Sure, this is Free Republic.
When you bag that deer, and it’s still breathing but in pain and suffering, do you let it continue or do you do the humane thing and end it’s suffering?
We should never force a human being to undergo pain and suffering on what we KNOW will end in death.
I would argue that God gave man the humanity to end suffering by easing the passing through the veil to paradise.
Not usually. Most patients with this type of cancer die in their sleep.
None of the authors business. He is not her God. Government, the church, or the state have no say in this. It’s a family matter.
I don’t believe this decision is mine to make. I don’t want any government encouraging it due to the inevitable mission creep of any such policy or law. If allowing it is good then encouraging it is better and then comes the law requiring it, under the bureaucratic mindset.
So, I believe what she wants to do is wrong, even if I understand why she wants to do it. If she wants to overdose on medication and fade out of existence rather than face the unknown and likely awful consequence of the fatal disease she has, she can certainly do so. There needs to be no law changed, no dragging medical services into it, no moral codes undermined to achieve her goal of exiting this plane of existence on her own schedule rather than God’s.
Just don’t expect the rest of us to applaud or accept such as an appropriate response, let alone require complicity and subject ourselves to the same.
It would appear that Mr. Dearce’s essay rests upon his interpretation of the word “dignity”. The Cambridge dictionary defines dignity as “the quality of a person that makes him or her deserving of respect, sometimes shown in behavior or appearance” suggesting external vs. internal regard, but then lists as synonyms the words self-regard, self-respect, and self-worth which are internal reflections.
He doesn’t see any dignity in her intention because it doesn’t conform to HIS sensibilities. I would remind Mr. Dearce that it isn’t his choice or decision.
It isn’t my place to judge Brittany’s intentions - that’s between her and her God. I do (of course) reserve the right to hold and express an opinion. In reflecting on the relative merits of the dignity contained within the decision to take control over the timing and machination of ones mortality I would offer the following observations: Hijacking a passenger airline and slamming it into a building full of people - not dignified. Likewise, ramming a speeding automobile into a bridge abutment - even in the absence of physical injury to others isn’t dignified. Ending your mortality in the privacy of your home through self-medication - yea I can see that as a dignified act. She recognizes the gravity of the moment and isn’t approaching it with casual disregard. She is trying to orchestrate the act so as to minimize the resulting consequence to others. And she is taking responsibility for herself and her mortality.
No matter what it is a tough situation and a tougher decision. I pray for her.
“By making the decision to end her own life on November 1st, Maynard is assuming she has nothing more to offer this world or her loved ones beyond that point. That is to say in essence she is playing God and making decisions as if she alone knows the future”
Somebody has to say it. If she is so willing to do something as extreme as end her life why not just try cannabis oil which is not even semi extreme and maybe pair it up with oxygen therapy. People are curing themselves of cancer with cannabis oil all over the place. If it does not work in a couple of mos then she can off herself.
Woman, you want to die, go right ahead. But don’t try to blackmail me into making suicide into some kind of a cause and saying I must approve.
The only problem I have with you is your incessant yakking about it. I don’t want to hear it.
Once WE decide that suicide for the terminally ill is a good idea, it won’t be long before the government steps in and agrees that they think it’s a good idea also. Then they will take over the “suicide” business with “SuicideCare”. Good luck with this.
The author is entitled to his belief, but it is meaningless to anyone who doesn't share his faith in that particular brand of revelation. To others it seems insane that death in the world is the result of something humans did, and not a part the nature of things. He admits he doesn't know if the person in question shares his faith, so he should either make an argument that doesn't rely on it, or mind his own business.
“We were originally created to live forever, but we chose to go our own way, “
Ah yes. Collective punishment done by a supposedly loving Creator. What a pant load.
Yeah there are. I knew a guy whose lung issues went terminal, he went out with such grace even the hospice nurses were impressed.
I know someone who had brain cancer and was supposed to have been gone before 2014 began. Doctor went into shock when he got test results showing her symptoms were not the result of the cancer reoccurring.
Her odds went from 5% survival to 50% now - FWIW. However, she had a grade 4 cancer but don’t think that is the same as stage 4. So my point is you never know.
However, this woman’s situation sounds pretty bad and in a way I can’t blame her for not wanting to endure the pain and suffering that I wouldn’t put a pet through.
I’ve been following this, and this whole thing disturbs me.
I am a Christian, and it is a teaching of the denomination to which I belong (Southern Baptist) that suicide is wrong because it does not allow God Himself to be the final say-so. That is...it takes a decision that should belong to God alone.
I saw an article done by a woman who is currently suffering from Stage 4 breast cancer. It is inoperable, and she is going to die. She fights on in order to spend the last few months, weeks, and days she has with her family. She has written an open letter to the young woman who is planning to die, asking her to reconsider and to try to participate in the possible ‘joys’ that her final days may bring.
Another woman wrote that “miracles can still happen”, and that the young woman should hang on and allow that “miracle” to take place.
I’ll say it right now. I do not believe in miracles of healing. You might, and that’s fine...but I have not seen WITH MY OWN EYES or known from PERSONAL EXPERIENCE that these things exist. Any recoveries I have seen from Christians around me from things like cancer, heart disease, or whatever have been through medical science and the body’s natural healing ability. There have been a few cases where, despite the prayers and pleas to Heaven for people who are suffering, no answer came and they passed on. They are in a much better place, but that is cold comfort to those left here to grieve. Some people never recover from that grief.
That this woman does not want her last days to be filled with unimaginable pain and suffering seems quite logical to me. I can see NO, and absolutely mean NO reason or purpose for a loving and holy God to want this to take place. What possible reason can there be? Yes...I know the line from the Bible “My ways are not your ways, and My thoughts are not your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8). However, looking at it from the point of view of the suffering person, that doesn’t provide an iota of comfort...none at all.
If I were in the position of the young woman (and I thank God I am not) I would not want to spend the last days of my life in intractable pain. I know I would not have the resources (read: money) to provide for pain relief, so I’d be stuck in unimaginable agony until God provided the relief of death.
At that point...in spite of my belief...ending that pain would be a very, VERY tempting option.
“... there is no such thing as a dignified death.”
I agree. Dignity is a state for the living. Dying is never pretty, and the pro-euthanasia nutjobs can never make it so.
This woman has terminal brain cancer, so according to her, its OK to kill herself because she is going to die anyway, tell that to Valerie Harper, who was given the same death sentence and she is STILL alive and in remission..Valerie Harper chose to fight, this woman wants to off herself and give up
My mother was battling ALS and had a DNR. Just days before she caught pneumonia, she changed her mind. As a result, she lived on a ventilator and other artificial means for four years.
I asked her if she regretted making the decision and she said no. It was a painful and undignified death for her, but she stood by her decision to the very end.