The Spiritual Arguments Essays - Medical Ethics, Euthanasia, Suicide

The Spiritual Arguments In this chapter the spiritual arguments for and against assisted suicide will be examined. What effect would the allowance of assisted suicide have on us as humans and as a society? A woman holds the hand of her mother who is dying from cancer during her final hours at a palliative care hospital in Winnipeg The following article shows the varied views of many religions on assisted suicide. Religion and Spirituality (Source - edited for size) Death with Dignity laws allow a terminally ill patient to hasten an inevitable and unavoidable death. It's not suicide nor euthanasia; rather, a possible option if the pain from the underlying illness gets to be too much or quality of life too degraded. While many faith traditions adhere to ancient traditions and understandings of physical life's final journey, modern medical technology has provided new information opening the door for faith leaders to actively reconsider some beliefs. Disease and terminal illness represent less mystery now, and are more associated with scientific and technological problem solving. Death with Dignity laws offer dying individuals an opportunity to ponder an important final life question, "What is the meaning of my life?" For many, this is a profoundly spiritual question, and answers come, not when an individual is consumed by a flurry of doctor's appointments, treatments or tests, but in the comfort of solitude when an individual feels at peace. As the leading edge of public policy working to ensure the rights of patients on this important final journey, Death with Dignity is not only a legal issue, but a cultural and spiritual issue, too. Some faith traditions have embraced Death with Dignity as an ultimate act of compassion, and others reject it is as morally bankrupt practice. 209 doctors Below you will find viewpoints of the differing faith traditions on Death with Dignity. Please remember: there is as much diversity among different faith traditions as there is between them. Anglican: Rowan Williams, the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, has stated that although "There is a very strong compassionate case" for physician-assisted dying, the Anglican church remains opposed to the practice. Baptist: The American Baptists Churches and Southern Baptist Convention differ in their statements regarding assisted dying. The American Baptists have adopted the policy to [sic] "to advocate within the medical community for increased emphasis on the caring goals of medicine which preserve the dignity and minimize the suffering of the individual and respect personal choice for end of life care." Whereas the Southern Baptists state the practice violates the sanctity of human life. Buddhism: Buddhists are not unanimous in their view of physician-assisted dying, and the teachings of the Buddha don't explicitly deal with it. The Buddha himself showed tolerance of suicide by monks in two cases. The Japanese Buddhist tradition includes many stories of suicide by monks, and suicide was used as a political weapon by Buddhist monks during the Vietnam war. But these were monks, and that makes a difference. In Buddhism, the way life ends has a profound impact on the way the new life will begin. So a person's state of mind at the time of death is important - their thoughts should be selfless and enlightened, free of anger, hate or fear. This suggests that suicide is only approved for people who have achieved enlightenment and that the rest of us should avoid it. Catholicism: The official position of the Catholic Church in Rome remains that killing of a human being, even by an act of omission to eliminate suffering, violates divine law and offends the dignity of the human person. However, many Catholicsparticularly in the United Statescite various quotations by Pope Benedict XVI as a source for continued disagreement and controversy regarding controversial issues. To compound confusion, physician-assisted dying is frequently and erroneously considered euthanasia: "Freedom to kill is not a true freedom but a tyranny that reduces the human being into slavery." "Scripture, in fact, clearly excludes every form of the kind of self-determination of human existence that is presupposed in the theory and practice of euthanasia." "Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war,