Washington state to allow `dignity' deaths

Washington State passed legislation last November 2008 to allow terminally ill patients with less than six months to live, to be assisted by their physicians in suicide by lethal medication.

I have a personal and a moral problem with this law. I believe in life and it’s importance. I believe that any form of suicide, regardless of the year of your life is morally wrong. I also see doctors using the suicide option in lieu of more treatments as misfeasance, for failing to treat!

About ten years ago, I lost my mother to lung cancer. I do not remember how many times she was diagnosed with ‘terminal or inoperable’ cancer before her death, but it took her twenty-five years to finally be layed to rest. I shudder to think that a doctor might have caught her in a weakened moment and convinced her to take her own life, during one of their misdiagnosis of, “you only have six months to live” decisions. The very thought that we might not even know about her decision hurts to think about it.

As it stands, my mother was a fighter and she managed to live an extra 25 years after her first diagnosis of cancer. Was this easy on our family? No! We all struggled and lived under the rain shadow of her only having a short period of time left to live, so we needed to make the best use of our time together. This we did. Those many years brought our family closer together in prayer and in unity as a family and gave us many happy years that we shared a closeness and greater sensitivity than we might have, had we had a healthy mom whom we did not have to worry about all the time.

Over the years, mom made many hospital visits for continued surgeries. After each surgery, the doctors would tell us that this might be her last days. Each time, she would heal up for a period of time and defy the doctor’s assessments. She was in constant pain after her surgeries, but medication helped ease her pain. As her body healed each time, she would become pain free again for another spell. My father and sisters and I enjoyed those many years and are thankful that she placed a higher value on living than on dieing.

We did not want her to suffer, but she enjoyed being with us as much as we enjoyed being with her. There was no pity party going on, just living life to the fullest. She enjoyed flowers and vegetable gardening and relaxing on warm sunny mornings in her back yard while watching the squirrels frolic and play and birds hovering on their bird feeders. She loved my father very much and desired to extend her life to spend time with him. Together they made and painted wood crafts, banjos and dulcimers, and they traveled together quite a bit.

Today, a group of people claiming they are compassionate (Compassion & Choices of Washington, the State’s largest advocacy group) are still celebrating their win in the November 2008 elections voting. They are currently gathering a list of doctors, hospitals and pharmacies who are willing to assist with suicide under the newly passed law. Good doctors, Pharmacists and hospitals are still given the right to refuse to participate in assisted suicide. Fortunately, most of these groups deplore the practice of assisted suicide and have opted out.

My recommendation is to support only establishments (doctors, pharmacists and hospitals) that practice family values and not these extreme liberals who view suicide as a “supposed kindness to the terminally ill”. How about we all practice “Life with dignity”, being closer as family and friends, instead of using Satan’s slick phrase, “Death with dignity”. Dignity in death is living a life ‘well spent’ in the service of our loved ones and friends, not selfishly cutting and running…

We all must form our own opinions here however and I must respect this.

As for me and my house, we will follow and serve the Lord and his counsel against murder which includes abortions and suicides.

For a recent article on the law: Washington State to allow ‘dignity’ deaths at:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gEOj2lhkuVJCGiPp-q1UD2ehPnEAD96LDB1O0