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Society & Culture
Bioethics
Sanctity of Life
Assisted Suicide

“The bill would authorize doctors to prescribe lethal drugs to patients who are mentally sound and have been diagnosed with having less than six months to live.” Washington Post

Discussion

Tue, 10/25/16

After all, how common are people who are mentally sound in the District? This is, after all, the city that returned Marion Barry to the mayor’s office after he was convicted for crimes related to being caught in bed smoking crack with a prostitute. (side note; if I were in Congress, yes, I would introduce a bill to revoke DC’s self-government—it’s simply a hazard to the rest of us)

OK, seriously, reality is that the pressure to “preserve resources for the heirs” is going to influence decisions here, and just as I don’t want an abortionist providing obstetrics services for my family (even though he’s probably otherwise qualified), I don’t want a doctor who will prescribe poison taking care of those I love. There is simply a moral and ethical barrier that is crossed that is incompatible with the heroic task of preserving life.

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.

Wed, 10/26/16

Suicide is dying on purpose. “Suicide missions” are pretty much dying on purpose as well, but for a different purpose and not at the behest of a medical professional. In both cases, chances of survival are zero or nearly zero.

On the other hand, even risky surgeries have far, far greater than zero % of success. It’s really a different category entirely. Since simply being alive is not the purpose of life, taking risks to enhance the ability to do things that matter makes plenty of sense to me from a biblical stewardship perspective.

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.

Wed, 10/26/16

For that matter, being in the infantry and charging a machine gun nest, no? Or going to that well to get King David a drink of water.

I’ve actually got a friend at church—surgery resident at Mayo—who is learning some of the “wildest” surgery techniques—like the one Ben Carson used to separate those twins in the movie about him—and my late mother actually had something similar done on her. Not identical, because she needed 10 units of blood to get through the surgery. (the liver is notoriously hard to work on, apparently)

So I’m good with taking risks, but not taking certainties in this regard. And I believe that it’s Biblical to ask the question “is what I gain out of this worth the cost”, along the lines of that passage in Luke.

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.