“Maybe they don’t feel strong right now and need to feel like they can be afraid,” Dr. The truth is that they will probably not “get through this” in the usual sense, because they are terminally ill. Not only do these statements dismiss their feelings and concerns, but they can also seem empty and insensitive. Although it can be tempting to reassure a patient that they will be okay, this approach can be hurtful. Remarks like “You’re strong” and “You’ll get through this” are equally problematic. Meredith Cinman, LCSW, MBA, adds that loved ones should try not to worry about saying “the right thing” and focus on spending more time truly listening to the patient instead. McCaddin says it’s important to respect the patient’s wishes but let them know you’re willing to hear their thoughts, hopes and fears whenever they are ready. “They might not want to talk,” explains Edie McCaddin, LICSW, MSW, ACSW, a social worker with 20 years of experience working with hospice patients and their families. “If I wanted to discuss my diagnosis, it felt good to know I had people I could talk to, but I never wanted to be treated differently.”Īnticipatory grief is a difficult process experienced by friends and relatives as well as the individual who is terminally ill. Experts who assist patients in their final days say the best thing to do for someone who has received news of their prognosis is to allow them to guide your conversations and actions. Everett Koop, M.D., Random House, 1991).“Most of the time, I really liked when people said nothing,” notes Michelle Colon-Johnson, who has been diagnosed with stage four cancer five times and survived. Everett Koop, who warned that the practice of medicine “cannot be both our healer and our killer” (from KOOP, The Memoirs of America’s Family Doctor by C. And we should all remember the words of former Surgeon General C. Anyone facing this issue should pray to God for wisdom (James 1:5). To actively hasten death is wrong to passively withhold treatment can also be wrong but to allow death to occur naturally in a terminally ill person is not necessarily wrong. We should never seek to prematurely end a life, but neither must we go to extraordinary means to preserve a life. Only God knows what is best, and His timing, even in the matter of one’s death, is perfect. God gives purpose in life even to the end. God cares about those who cry out for death and wish to end their suffering. Romans 5:3 teaches that tribulations bring about perseverance. “When times are good, be happy but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other” (Ecclesiastes 7:14). Often, God’s purposes are made known through suffering. No one enjoys suffering, but that does not make it right to determine that a person should die. Sometimes God allows a person to suffer for a long time before death occurs other times, a person’s suffering is cut short. Euthanasia and assisted suicide are man’s attempts to usurp that authority from God.ĭeath is a natural occurrence. Job testifies in Job 30:23, “I know you will bring me down to death, to the place appointed for all the living.” Ecclesiastes 8:8 declares, “No man has power over the wind to contain it so no one has power over the day of his death.” God has the final say over death (see 1 Corinthians 15:26, 54–56 Hebrews 2:9, 14–15 Revelation 21:4). However, God alone is sovereign over when and how a person’s death occurs. We know that physical death is inevitable for us mortals (Psalm 89:48 Hebrews 9:27). The overriding truth that God is sovereign drives us to the conclusion that euthanasia and assisted suicide are wrong. Euthanasia spurns the gift and embraces the curse. When given the choice between life and death, God told Israel to “choose life” (Deuteronomy 30:19). Life is a sacred gift from God (Genesis 2:7). This focus on death as an answer to the world’s problems is a total reversal of the biblical model. And euthanasia is promoted as a viable means of solving various social and financial problems. Now some are seriously proposing infanticide. We live in what is sometimes described as a “culture of death.” Abortion on demand has been practiced for decades. Proponents of assisted suicide try for a positive spin by using terms like “death with dignity.” But “death with dignity” is still death, “assisted suicide” is still suicide, and suicide is wrong. By taking a “hands-off” approach to the death itself, the facilitator seeks to avoid charges of murder. The person assisting the suicide facilitates death by making preparations and furnishing the needed equipment but the person seeking death is the one who actually initiates the process. Essentially, a person seeking assisted suicide is seeking to euthanize himself, with the aid of another person to ensure that death is quick and painless. A related issue is that of assisted suicide.
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