Posted on 11/23/2006 1:06:06 PM PST by Coleus
Euthanasia Robs Dying of Opportunities for Reconciliation, Family Connections, Says Leading Ethics Professor
Fr. Robert Spitzer speaks at pro-life conference in Vancouver
The last stages of life serve as a vital “wrap-up” period that provides opportunities for important developments in relationships with family and friends, said Fr. Robert J. Spitzer, S.J., ethics expert and co-founder of the Center for Life Principles, at a B.C. pro-life conference on Saturday. He said the end of life period should never deliberately be cut short. Speaking at the International Pro-Life Conference held in Vancouver Nov. 16-18, Fr. Spitzer identified dominant myths put forward by the pro-euthanasia movement--arguments, he said, that prey on the vulnerable elderly who fear suffering and don't want to be a burden.
“The final six months of life frequently see a significant improvement in reconciliation, in relationships with family and friends, in the passing on of wisdom and a personal legacy to family, and in a great investment in the relationship with God,” Fr. Spitzer said. The assumption that terminally ill patients have a low quality of life is simply not accurate, he said, when a narrow definition of life quality based on physical health and freedom of movement is expanded to include a much greater emphasis on relationships.
He pointed out that while euthanasia advocates frequently rely on the argument of inadequate pain treatment to promote legal assisted suicide and euthanasia, in fact research has shown that 96 percent of terminal pain can be adequately controlled through advances in morphine use, without significant loss of consciousness. According to a report by the World Health Organization, 97 percent of requests for assisted suicide were withdrawn after the patients received adequate pain management and treatment for temporary depression.
Legal euthanasia and assisted suicide will create a culture of suicide, Fr. Spitzer warned, as life value is measured more and more in terms of physical health and independence. “Young people will hear this as a legitimate solution to pain and suffering,” he said. “Schools will carry this. What becomes legal becomes normative, what becomes normative becomes moral.” Fr. Spitzer said it is imperative that governments resist the push to legalize euthanasia, despite pressure from activist organizations who claim euthanasia should be a personal choice. “There is a basic principle at work here. One person's option can—and will—become another person's duty to die.”
President of Gonzaga University and founder of the Institute of Professional Ethics in Seattle and the Institute on Character Development at Seattle University, Fr. Spitzer is a world-renowned speaker, author and lecturer.Visit Healing the Culture website: http://www.healingtheculture.com/calendar.shtml
This is so true: too bad the American majority has its eyes only on the soon-to-be-deceased pocketbook, assuming there is "stuff" in the pocketbook.
The good Father misses the point. If we can get the euthanasia ball rolling steadily downhill, pretty soon we can have state-sponsored euthanasia, to which Oregon, for example, is inching ever closer. Then just imagine the possibilities for the government. Administrative euthanasia. Political euthanasia. Organ donor euthanasia. Estate tax euthanasia. To say nothing of the fact that it is tailor made for ghouls like the killing judge in Pinellas County, george greer.
Well, when my maternal grandmother was dying from pancreatic cancer, morphine, which this Fr. Robert J. Spitzer, S.J., ethics expert, advocates for pain management, stopped working. As a gratitude for his advice, I wish on him and his ilk and kind an equally painful end.
You are sooooooo wrong about Oregon!
The vast majority of patients who have the "option" of ending their life, do NOT choose to do so....like over 95%.
Yet, they report they are much less stressed and fearful just because the option is there.
No.....the author is way wrong. Morphine does very very often NOT alleviate pain while maintaining consciousness. that is such BS. At least be honest and say, well, if they suffer, they suffer.
As for the "relationship mending " theory....maybe that works for a short while while the patient is still conscious and feeling fairly well. After that...not. Lets just be honest in the discussion and not sugar coat it with all this stuff about terminal patients ALL don't have a lower quality of life.
Nice theories until you see the realities.
Ouch.
I agree with you...se my post 4.
My father died of pancreatic cancer.
I can't stand these high and mighty spiritual wise men who know it all...stay in your own area and leave science and medicine to the docs.
An atheistic and materialistic approach to life does not recognize any of those things as important in life. Spreading Christianity is the only way to hold back this grotesque ideological movement.
Sounds good in theory but when reality steps in the stuff changes real fast.
My old tagline included his name. Schiavo, Greer, Felos--a satanic triumverate.
You are absolutely right...
Ouch?? In Middle Ages he would be BEGGING me to put him back in the frying pan.
"It will be I?
"It will be the silence, where I am? I don't know, I'll never know: in the silence you don't know.
You must go on.
I can't go on.
I'll go on.
Samuel Beckett “The Unnamable”
I understand there are other more effective pain managements medications and they should be used. No reson to worry about addictions for someone who's dying anyway and IF they happen to make a miraculous recovery, THEN deal with the addiction. Letting people suffer for not good reason is inhumane and I sure can understand your attitude.
This is so very true. I know someone in the final stages of life. He has used this time to make amends with the pastor and parish community he had abandoned and with his own family. This has brought much peace to all.
This is so very true. I know someone in the final stages of life. He has used this time to make amends with the pastor and parish community he had abandoned and with his own family. This has brought much peace to all.
Pancreatic cancer is very painful. But sometimes a nerve block helps relieves the pain, or alternative analgesics: Anti inflammatories for bone pain, anti seizure medicines for nerve pain, anti depressants for the fatigue/malaise, etc. And a morphine drip will relieve the pain if enough is given.
The highest dose of morphine I ever gave was 300 mg per hour. Usually 15 mg last 4-6 hours, and a shot of 50 -100 mg will kill you.
In the most severe cases, we give morphine until the person is unconcious and keep it there. Sometimes we mix it with other sedatives. Alas, too often doctors are worried about being accused of euthanasia, so don't give enough. Also, sometimes the nurses refuse.
I had a young man in his 40's dying of stomach cancer who I was giving IV morphine alternating with IV valium every half hour PRN. After three doses, the nurses refused to give it, but the guy was still moaning, so I had to give it.
What actually relieved his pain was when we got a local minister to come in and pray for him. The man didn't want to die because he had young children, so was fighting death. It was terrible. But after prayer, he calmed down, and the man slipped into a coma, didn't require any more pain shots and died that night.
I've seen this happen on several patients who were suffering and pain medicine only relieved their physical pain.
Pain can be physical pain, and we can relieve it. But pain is complex, and suffering is not the same as pain.
In the Netherlands, what happens is that it's easier to just give a shot. Yet even in the Netherlands, a lot of their "end of life" decisions that euthanasia advocates and opponants call "euthanasia" are merely doing what we all do: Relieving pain.
And the Catholic church back in the 1950's released a document insisting that this can be done even if the end result is shortening life. (A morphine induced coma makes one prone to pneumonia etc).
The bad news is that once you start with the idea that killing is okay, some people get corrupted, and then next thing you know is that others are killed, often against their will. Also, palliation becomes less of a priority. Why adjust grandmom's medicines so she can live her last few weeks in peace when she's going to die anyway?
I am sorry about your grandmother. Cancer is terrible. But killing is not the answer because in the long run, it corrupts the medical profession and promotes the idea that some people are better off dead.
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