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During my fathers last few days alive, he was in pain from his cancer, so the docs gave him some morphine...this relieved him for a while, but within about two hours, the pain came back, and was worse...so they put him on a heavy morphine drip, heavy enough to take away his pain...

But, as the docs warned me, that heavy of a morphine drip, while relieving dads pain, would almost certainly produce a coma in him, a coma from which he would never recover...

So the choice was, did I allow him to be concious, and in terrible pain, or did I allow him to have enough pain medication to relieve his pain, tho it might hasten his death...it was my choice, and my choice alone...my mother had Alzheimers, and was not able to make the choice...my only sibling was already dead...so it was up to me...I knew my dad....I knew he did not want pain, he did not want to live on machines, ,he did not want to be force fed...

He wanted to die, when his time had come, to die in peace...so I chose for the continuous heavy morphine drip to continue...and dad died one day later, quietly, ,peacefully, and free from pain...

There are those who want to call that murder...they feel my dad should have continue on in pain, that suffering is good for you...

I could not bear to see him cry, to hear him howl in pain...I am at peace with my decision, just as I allowed him to die in peace...

I am the one who has to live with my decision...and I will always feel I made the only decision possible...

I will refer to my own Roman Catholic Faith, not to preach to you but to say that your decision is better supported than you may realize, whatever your own faith may or may not be. You obviously loved your father very much and did what you did motivated by that love. The situation you describe ios not a mercy-killing. It was NOT homicide of any sort, much less murder. It was a mature recognition of reality and and a reasoned and moral decision after weighing the considerations most judiciously with regard for your father's status.

A bit of research should disclose that the pope and the Roman Catholic Church agree with you. Your father's physical condition was irreversible and reasonably viewed as imminently fatal. He was in extreme pain. The heavy morphine drip would eliminate his experience of pain by inducing his coma. As I understand it, John Paul II, commenting on such situations, has observed that each human life has an inherent dignity which must not be transgressed. The prolonging of life by medical means when no hope is present is an affront to that dignity. The narcotic administered, not to kill but to ease pain, merely placed your father in the irreversible coma and did not cause death where death was not already imminent.

I like to think that I have earned a reputation here as a hardliner on social issues. If you think that I would condemn you, you would be wrong. If I had been in your shoes, I would have made the same decision. You made a moral choice and, it seems to me, that you made THE moral choice. You have nothing to apologize for and you are right not to apologize.

The only minor bone I would pick is that, as painful as the suffering of a loved one can be for thee or me, OUR suffering is not sufficient reason to allow them to slip away. In your father's case, this was a distinction without a difference. You did the right thing.

Death is a gift that God has provided to ease and end the earthly suffering of the dying person. Even non-believing novelists and scriptwriters have used their skills to speculate on the consequences of living for hundreds of years beyond a now normal lifespan even without the burdens of illness and aging. As it is natural that, once conceived, we should be born, it is also natural that we should expect death at an appropriate time and be prepared for it. Andy and Mike are blessed to have such a mom. May God bless and keep your father and your mother and may he bless you and yours.

This is one of the great moral ironies of our time. On the one hand, I'm glad there are laws on the books to prevent suicide and/or assisted suicide. On the other hand, I understand why it happens.

Conservatives' opposition to Youth-in-Asia is based on the perverse manipulations by leftist governments that result, such as what happened in Leftist Nazi Germany. And Dr. Kovorkian wasn't careful enough about making sure that the people he killed really wanted to do it. I heard reports that many were pressured into it by their families to save money and/or reduce hassle.

I played an evil, old game when I was a kid: Dungeons & Dragons. And yes, it was a bad influence on some kids in some ways, promoting black magic, pagan gods, the absurd desire to become a god. And it tempted children to consider what it might be like to be evil. It brought the best and the worst out of you. I resisted all that was wrong as I understood the Bible better. In fact, I made up different versions of it.

But D&D taught me some useful and important things. One of them was 'ethical alignments'.

There were three kinds of good and three kinds of lawfulness. So please try to imagine a chart:

Lawful Good...........Neutral Good.......Chaotic Good

Lawful Neutral.........Pure Neutral.........Chaotic Neutral

Lawful Evil.............Neutral Evil..........Chaotic Evil

[I tend to think of pure neutral as schitzophrenia or something of that nature, although leftists think of pure neutral as 'seeking the Balance' and 'moral maturity'].

This is a great way to think about all the different moral conflicts. Chaos thinks that Law waters down all the zest in life. Law believes that law alone can make this world a better place. Both are correct! Which is why I am Neutral Good. I don't want too much law, which we currently have. But at the same time, I would not want complete anarchy.

God said, "Thou shalt not kill!" And that is God's Word. But God also said the Golden Rule, [essentially, please don't take this as an exact quote] "Do unto others as thou wouldst have done unto thyself". My friend, thinking in terms of law vs. chaos, I would say you acted in a neutral or chaotic manner with the best of intensions. Good for you!