Killing Us Softly: Part One

Euthanasia is a long, smooth-sounding word, and it conceals its danger as long, smooth words do, but the danger is there, nevertheless.  Pearl S. Buck

Condemned German: “But we didn’t think it would go that far.”
American judge: “It went that far the very first time you condemned an innocent human being.” (Conversation in the American motion picture, Judgment at Nuremburg)

From the Soviet gulag to the Nazi concentration camps and the killing fields of Cambodia, history teaches that granting the state legal authority to kill innocent individuals has dreadful consequences. Pete Du Pont, former Delaware governor

Passive Euthanasia

My sweet momma died on July 19, 1994.  She had Alzheimer’s, but her death was hurried along because she was deprived of food and water. My baby sister had medical power of attorney and was convinced by the physicians that mother would feel no pain.  When I found out, I called the nursing home in Illinois and spoke to the medical director.  I told him I did not want my mother starved and dehydrated to death.  He told me she wouldn’t feel anything.  He never said she was receiving any pain medication.  I responded that there wasn’t much difference between what he was doing to my mother and what was done by the Nazis to concentration camp prisoners.  He answered that my mother could feel nothing because she didn’t have her brain function any longer.  Of course, being starved and dehydrated doesn’t help with brain function of prisoners either.  I hung up and wept bitter tears.  Momma died three days later.  I later found out that what was done to my mother had been common practice for several decades.  My mother did not deserve this end. Hydration would have kept her body comfortable until God took her home.

Passive Euthanasia is what was done to my mom.Euthanasia is Greek for “good death,” but there is nothing good about dying from a lack of hydration.  Passive euthanasia is all too common in America today. It is hastening the death of a person by altering some form of support and letting nature take its course. Respirators are turned off, medications halted, food and water discontinued, ultimately allowing an early death no matter the discomfort to the patient.

Passive euthanasia also includes giving a patient large doses of palliative medications to control pain in spite of the likelihood that the painkiller will suppress respiration and cause death earlier than it otherwise. Such doses of painkillers have a dual effect of relieving pain and hastening death. Administering such medication is regarded as ethical in most political jurisdictions and by most medical societies, including the special “cocktail” given by Hospice employees.

These procedures are performed on terminally ill, suffering persons so that natural death will occur sooner. They are also commonly performed on persons in a persistent vegetative state; for example, individuals with massive brain damage or in a coma from which they will unlikely regain consciousness.  

The slippery slope of murdering the vegetative or terminally ill started in l935 in Britain, in l938 in the US, and in l980 in Canada. The British and American groups were very small and insignificant for the next two decades.  It became larger and more vocal after the hugely-publicized Karen Ann Quinlan “right-to-die“ case in New Jersey in l976. That case revealed to the public the extent of modern medical technology to extend life indefinitely in a persistent vegetative state.  

A broad majority of Americans, 72%, continue to believe that doctors should be legally allowed, at a patient’s and a family’s request, to end a terminally ill patient’s life using painless means. While support for legalized euthanasia is strong across nearly all subgroups of Americans, men, young adults, Democrats and liberals are especially likely to favor it. Support drops below a majority only among weekly congregants.

Those who object to euthanasia are the devout Christians and Jews.  Killing an innocent is a crime against the 6th commandment, “Thou shalt not murder.“ This commandment forbids the killing of the innocent, not the killing of the guilty, which can be sometimes ordered by the state for the common good. This is clear in the Hebrew Bible where Moses also gave laws to kill the guilty, and in the doctrine of the Catholic and protestant churches. Euthanasia is a crime against the same commandment, just as is abortion.  Both are murder.

Several people have told me about deaths in their family and what has happened with hospital employees and Hospice care.  My mother’s experience was in an Alzheimer’s nursing home.  Their stories have become more common with Obama Care.  

The American physician’s original Hippocratic Oath is bizarre inasmuch as the oaths are to false gods. (Russian and Islamic physicians take different oaths.)  

The Original Oath of Hippocrates

“I SWEAR by Apollo the physician and Asclepius, (the Greek god of medicine and healing) and Hygieia,(daughter of the god of medicine, Asclepius, and the goddess/personification of health) and Panaceia, (another daughter and goddess of Universal remedy) and all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will fulfill according to my ability and judgment, this Oath and this covenant. To hold him who has taught me this Art as equal to me as my parents, and to live my life in partnership, and if he is in need of money, to give him a share of mine, and to regard his offspring as equal to my brother in male lineage and to teach them this art, if they desire to learn it, without fee and covenant, to give a share of the precepts and oral instruction and all the other learning to my sons and to the sons of him who has instructed me and to pupils who have signed the covenant and have taken an oath according to the medical law, but to no one else.

I will apply dietetic measures for the benefit of the sick, according to my ability and judgment; I will keep them from harm and injustice.  I will neither give adeadly drug to anybody if asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect. Similarly, I will not give to a woman an abortive remedy. In purity and holiness, I will guard my life and my Art.

I will not use the knife, not even on sufferers from stone, but will withdraw in favor of such men as are engaged in this work. Whatever houses I may visit, I will come for the benefit of the sick, remaining free of all internal injustice, of all mischief, and in particular of sexual relations with both female and male persons, be they free or slaves. What I may see or hear, in the course of treatment or even outside the treatment in regard to the life of men, which on no account one must spread abroad, I will keep to myself holding such things shameful to be spoken about. If I fulfill this oath and do not violate it, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and the practice of the art, being honored with fame among all men for all time to come; if I transgress it and swear falsely, may the opposite be my lot.“

Obviously, one does not have to swear allegiance to a Greek polytheistic deity, but swearing the oath to apersonal God is a tie that binds.  The rest of the oath is pretty clear.  Of special import is the portion I highlighted.  Sadly today, our medical personnel have decided to speed death along rather than giving aid and comfort to the sick and suffering.  They’ve become the “god“ whodecides life and death.  This practice on the sick and elderly accelerated during Covid where no true aid and comfort was given and the elderly and disabled died.  

For nearly 50 years we allowed the murder of the most innocent, America’s unborn babies.  When I wrote the article, THE CULTURE OF DEATH, I said I would write another article regarding after-birth abortion proponentsand their plans.  I couldn’t bring myself to face the research I’d collected to write that article.  The truth of our death culture is often more than I can bear, especially the unborn.  The elderly in our country have been the targets for decades as well.  Instead of being cherished and honored, they are being treated as “useless eaters” that should quickly die.  We need to know what to expect, what to alert our loved ones to watch for, and what to tell them we want at the end of our lives.  

In 1993, Dr. Reed Bell wrote the book, Prescription Death: Compassionate Killers in the Medical Profession.  He discussed the changes that had taken place in European countries over the previous 25 years.  These changes are now happening in America at an exponential speed.  Our culture has changed from a basic Judeo-Christian ethos and ethic to the prevailing secular humanist characteristics and philosophies.  We have moved from sanctity-of-life to “quality-of-life.”.  Since 1973, we have accepted the right of women to kill their unborn babies for any reason at all because it’s a woman’s “right to choose,” and now, with Obama Care, we are moving rapidly to condoning suicide and the “right-to-die.”  

One of the most frightening aspects of the euthanasia movement is called Crypthanasia, (active euthanasia on sick people without their knowledge).  A typical case might be an older person who has suffered a heart attack and is in the emergency room.  His problem could be ameliorated with a pace maker, but because of his age and the cost of care, he is denied treatment and is allowed to die, or even assisted in dying by a physician who has decided he is not worth saving.  This is done without the patient’s or his family’s knowledge or consent.  

The Judeo-Christian ethic has moved to a quality-of-life ethic and eventually moves to a “compassionate killing” of patients and the “duty-to-die.”  Once we’ve accepted the notion there is a “right-to-die,” it doesn’t take much rationalizing to accept the idea that there may also be a “duty–to–die“ and that our medical profession has an obligation to help people along in the dying process, even against their will.  

Conclusion

The Manufacturer’s Handbook is clear throughout both the Old and New Testaments.  

Only the Lord Himself has the right to choose when our lives on earth come to an end.  Human beings are unique beings made “in the image of God” (Gen 1:26-28).  “Thoushalt not kill“ (Exodus 20:13). “CHOOSE LIFE”(Deuteronomy 30:19).

Life is a gift from God and the moment of death is God’s prerogative.  “Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with thee, thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass; ” (Job 14:5).

“To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under the heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted” (Eccl 3:1-2).

Sickness or injury at the end of life can cause suffering that can be trying on the family as well.  Yet, again, God says, “Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer … Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life” (Rev 2:10).

God can heal even the hopeless cases. “Heal me, O LORD, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved: for thou art my praise.”  Jeremiah 17:14