A much-talk-about topic recently....EUTHANASIA.

Last week, a friend asked me if I supported euthanasia.
Her granduncle is suffering from cancer and spending his last days in hospital.
He requested for euthanasia.

Morally, I would voice out condemnation.
I explained to my friend that if the latter is a Catholic, I will emphasize the Catholic teachings.
Our life is a gift from God.
Only He has the authority to take it back.
If the latter is a non-believer of Christ, i would still voice out my views against it and suggest alternatives.
Fortunately euthanasia has not been legalised in most countries, at least not in Singapore.

A 79-year old woman who was never married, had no other family and had few friends, lived on her own and had problems moving around on her own.
A nursing home would seem the next pitstop for her.
She was neither sick nor dying.
Rather than facing the prospect of moving into a nursing home, she asked a prominent German campaigner for assisted suicide, for a way out.
She swallowed a deadly cocktail of the antimalaria drug chloroquine and the sedative diazepam.
What this campaigner had done was unacceptable; this woman was not offered other options and there was clearly nothing wrong with her other than fear.


Last month, Washington joined Oregon in allowing physicians to prescribe lethal doses of medication to terminally ill people who want to hasten their own deaths.


Also during last month in Italy, the father of a woman in a persistent vegetative state was allowed to remove his daughter’s feeding tube, ending a case that has divided Catholic Italy but setting off intense new debate. His daughter had been involved in an accident and had been hospitalised and fed through a tube for 17 years.
The Italian Bishops Association said the ruling sanctioned euthanasia, a practice that is illegal in Italy, and called on Parliament to pass a law that would safeguard the “end of life".


November 23rd, Catholic News Headlines: Archbishop Nicholas Chia: Church condemns Direct Euthanasia.

Archbishop Chia addressed the issue in a pastoral letter released and was read during All Saints Day Masses.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states " Whatever its motives and means, direct euthanasia consists in putting an end to the lives of the handicapped, sick or dying persons. It is morally unacceptable."

While National Council of Churches of Sinapore (NCCS) supports and promotes compassionate responses to human suffering, it categorically opposes to all forms of euthanasia.
Euthanasia is against the very ethos of medical practice because the duty of the physician is always to care and not to kill.

As early as 1980, the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith had already stated clearly: Inetentionally causing one's death, or suicide, is equally as wrong as murder; such an action on the part of a person is to be considered as a rejection of God's sovereignty and loving plan.

I wish people would push for new laws to ban commercial ventures that help people kill themselves.
Suicide itself and aiding a suicide may not be a crime, but it is a sin.
One should not choose death for our life is a gift.
Euthanasia, or mercy killing is dragging another person into sinning.
The act is inhumane and should be made illegal across the world.

As much as I will not yield to such request, I explained to my friend that we are in no position to judge the latter for we are not the one who is suffering from pain, having tubes stuck into us or bedridden.
We will never be able to understand the torment the latter is going through; the physical and mental struggle.

So would you...
choose to let go of your loved one through grave violation of the law of God or
would you watch your loved one battling death in pain.