I too wonder if they sometimes tell us things to make us choose the path they wish.
Of course in your father's case, his death was oncoming due to the Altzheimer's.
When my mother went to the hospital for a possible stroke - they could not tell if she had had one. However, the doctor seeing her condition, that she was totally unable to do anything for herself and the dementia/altzheimer's was progressing told me she might need a pacemaker but due to her condition, he did not recommend putting in the pacemaker.
He told me sometimes you have to look at what you are giving them by providing the surgery. In her case, he said, a death by heartfailure would be a lot easier on her than the coming death by altzheimer's destruction on the brain. He also said if it was his mother, he would not do it.
After Terri, I looked back on this and wondered if he was one that would usher people "out the door" by his recommendations. Then I realized he was correct and that her downward progression was going to continue no matter what we did. And, would it be better for her to live to see her brain make her forget how to chew, make her body forget to breathe? Or, a more peaceful death if her heart just failed should that occur.
We all have to make decisions when the aged are leaving this life. We just have to honor them and give the very best we can for them due to love. If not love, then total respect for the one that gave us life. If other more distant relatives, we just have to be the ones making sure they are treated with respect for them and their wishes, honor and kindness as they go to meet their Maker.
But, it is a different matter when it comes to non-dying people.
We must remember "as you do unto the least of these, so you do unto Me". If you remember that, we will not have to worry about euthanasia, greed, murder.
They appear to be saying that the movement to eradicate the presumption for life was a done deal for a while now and just the tip of the iceberg.
COMMENTARY: CASE POINTS UP URGENCY OF WILL TO LIVE
By Burke J. Balch, J.D., director of NRLC Dep't of Medical Ethics
"It should come as no surprise that, with important exceptions, the prevailing view in the judiciary, as in the medical profession, is receptive to the quality of life ethic. Judges are often dismissive of our position that all human beings possess dignity and the right to live, regardless of their age or degree of disability. When the relative or other individual designated by state law to make health care decisions for an incompetent person who has left no clear advance directive chooses to cut off food and fluids, courts are rarely willing to agree with other relatives who seek to overturn that decision."
"Indeed, the current battleground is over efforts by health care personnel to cut off food, fluid and life-saving treatments from patients they think have a poor quality of life AGAINST THE WISHES of the patient and family. A large body of medical and ethical opinion holds that even when there is no doubt that a patient wants to live, or when family members are united in saying the patient should get life-saving treatment, doctors and hospitals should be able to say no.