Sunday, October 09, 2005

Archbishop of Canterbury against Euthanasia...

In some news I read online, the archbishop of Canterbury stated that he was against voluntary euthanasia while watching his mother's painful death from dimentia. He went on to justify that life is not just something we as humans can just throw away whenever we want because it's a gift from God.

I tend to disagree with his initial statement because ending the suffering of someone, especially a loved one is one of the reason we are all here right? I know that sounds like an opinion, but I think it's all in our nature as humans to lessen or eliminate the suffering of others because we want to release them from that suffering in order to put them in some sort of happiness. Isn't what he did, just watching his mother as she died, the same as seeing a person on fire, or a person blown in half lying on the floor and just watching them as they slowly and painfully die? According to some Christian teaching, didn't he just pretty much put her through a second purgatory? So she had to suffer before she died, and then she suffers again before being judged according to some Christian belief. I don't think it counts as throwing life away anymore when the person's life has already been taken from them. A person in a vegetative state doesn't have a life, a person who doesn't know who they are or where they are doesn't have a life, and a person who altogether faces an inevitable death through much suffering beforehand doesn't have a life anymore. Euthanasia just quickens their journey to death; not actually change their course of life to make it so they are going to die instead.