But Wait, Aren't We All Dying?

Side note, I just finished my assignment and I'm still in the heat of typing something, hence this post. So, I cant remember where, but I came across the topic of Euthanasia, again. Therefore, I told myself, its time to take a stand. These things has been in debate like, forever. But this is just my stand for it. Just in case I come to that point in my life. I don't want to be making decisions then, so I shall sort out my life right.now.

 

Just a pretext to this, I'm a Catholic. This post just became less fun didn't it? because you can pretty much judge my stand in this. However, I'm still gonna talk about it. I'm not gonna discuss about the definition of Euthanasia and all, because you can do that yourself.

I got this from Vatican, written by Pope John Paul II, basically making a strong statement about Euthanasia and its likes;

"Whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia or willful self-destruction, whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself; whatever insults human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children; as well as disgraceful working conditions, where people are treated as mere instruments of gain rather than as free and responsible persons; all these things and others like them are infamies indeed. They poison human society, and they do more harm to those who practice them than to those who suffer from the injury. Moreover, they are a supreme dishonor to the Creator"

So, by that I think the Catholic stand is pretty firm. In my country, Malaysia, Islam is the "official" religion, and their take on this is against it as well. Hence Euthanasia is illegal in my country, as Islam is the official religion. 

But personally, what do I think, putting religion aside? I am going to separate the possible situation of the patients in two. One, a patient is suffering from a horrible disease, but without a fix date of death; however we know that death is approaching. I'll give you an example of a patient I saw in a hospital. A 7 year old female diagnosed with SLE, now 13 years old with ESRF. Death is imminent, just impossible to accurately date. Situation number 2, the most popular example being cancer, where lets say the patient has 6 to 8 months life expectancy. 

For situation one, I'd say No for Euthanasia, and for situation 2 I'd say Yes. No for the first situation for obvious reasons. If that was the case, we should all die now since so many of us are in constant pain without a known date of death. The problem here is pretty simple actually. Most people dislike pain and want to avoid it. At the same time, there is always that tiny bit of hope that something else miraculously might happen. Medicine is so subjective, nothing can be confirmed. No matter how dumb that sentence may sound, one has to swallow that truth down their throat and digest it. So be it a fatal glioblastoma you are having currently, and death is definitely by your side, you could be that one in a million patient that had a tumour regression maybe? Idk. Or you could one of the 999 999 other patients that will die. Finally it comes back to what do you want to live for isn't it? If you have a few months left, and want to spend it with a loved one, then do so. Or, you lost your purpose in life and want to hastily meet your creator, or your creator's enemy then be it. I like one of the approaches to Euthanasia in one of the country I forgot which, where the patient is approached at intervals of 2 weeks and then 6 months later to confirm his or her decision on dying. This could really be beneficial as the patient might have just decided to die in the heat of the moment, but then later on, decided to do something worthwhile with the remaining moments of his or her life. 

Don't say you can't do much with little time. It takes a couple of seconds to make another person laugh, and making another person laugh is a great thing to do. It's not that you cant possible have any jobs to do if you are bed ridden. I remember one person in my class a few years back offering the answer of a 'radio jockey'. That is something you can do, and if your station is famous, you could make your entire country laugh or cry, or be inspired by your story or whatever not. So saying there's nothing I can do my remaining in time is not accurate. The real problem here is pain and discomfort, are you willing to go through these? I guess that's the tough call. 

For me, if there is really something I could do for another, whether it be someone I know or not, I would do it, even if it causes me pain. That's just me. So I'd choose not to die. Of course I'm giving examples of patients who are still able to do stuff in a few months. I'm not referring to those patients unable to even talk while just being infused with morphine or something. If it was utterly up to me, I'd wait. I would not request for Euthanasia. Lets say I'm in the last stages, just morphine daily, can't even get out of bed, can barely talk, I'd still wait. This is my respect and love for my creator. I believe he has it all sorted out. Everybody needs an identity, and I want mine to be in Christ. At least of recent. So I'd choose to go through it, even if I don't see the benefit of it. Yes, earlier I said, 'yes' for one of the situation of the patient but that was religion aside, theoretically. But that's not what I plan to do. 

Of course there are other grey areas such as DNR and such but lets keep that for a different time, mostly because I'm suddenly tired. So as a conclusion, I wouldn't want Euthanasia for myself, but I approve if others want it, because we have different ways of life, and I respect what you believe in. In the other situation where the call is made by a proxy, I don't really care. Hahaha. Because if you want to Euthanize me, you better not have any guilt later on, either way I'm fine with it. Since it was entirely up to you, it will all depend on your way of life and what you believe in.

To those who are living, I'm not going to say be happy, but what I'm gonna say is, learn to embrace sadness and pain. There's a certain unique victory in that, that can't be penned or verbalized. See ya!