RELIGION AND LIFE 

2 - MATTERS OF LIFE AND DEATH 

Euthanasia - 

• Gentle and easy death for someone suffering from painful/deadly disease with little quality of life 
• Assisted suicide, voluntary euthanasia, non-voluntary euthanasia 
• British law - all of these methods are murder 
• Law - stopping artificial feeding/not giving treatment (passive euthanasia) are legal 

Why it is controversial - 

1 - Want it to remain illegal 

• Will always be the doubt of if it is what the person really wants 
• A cure may be found before the disease ends the life 
• Job of doctors to save lives, not end them - trustworthy? 
• People might change their mind when it is too late 
• Would be hard to check if someone really wanted/needed euthanasia 

2 - Want it to be made legal 

• Medicinal discoveries mean that people who would have dies are not kept alive (in agony) - should have the right to die 
• Doctors have right to switch off life support machines if the patient has no chance of recovering and allow people in comas for years to die - already forms of legal euthanasia 
• People have the right to commit suicide - should have right to ask for doctors to help if they are too weak to do it themselves 
• Euthanasia already given to suffering animals - no different 

Christian attitudes - 

1 - Catholics and many Liberal Protestants 

• Assisted suicide, voluntary euthanasia and non-voluntary euthanasia is all wrong 
• Switching off life support machines, not giving treatment that could cause distress and giving dying people painkillers is not euthanasia 
• Sanctity of life 
• Euthanasia is murder - forbidden in Ten Commandments 
• If doctors say someone is brain-dead, they have already died - switching off machine is accepting what God has already decided 
• Doctrine of double effect - if you give painkillers to a dying person in pain, and it kills them, it isn't murder because the intention was to relieve the pain (not kill them) 

2 - Some Christians 

• Any euthanasia is wrong (turning off life-support machines, refusal of extraordinary treatment, giving large doses of painkillers) etc. because life is being ended by humans, not God 
• Take Bible teaching literally - forbids suicide 
• All forms of euthanasia are murder - banned in Ten Commandments 
• Sanctity of life 

3 - A few christians 

• Accept euthanasia in some circumstances 
• Medical advances mean its hard to know what God's wishes for someone are 
• Love your neighbour - can justify assisted suicide, most loving thing to do 
• Basic human right to have control of your body and what people do to it - have right to refuse treatment, should have right to ask for euthanasia 

Jewish attitudes - 

1 - Many Jews (Orthodox) 

• Do not allow euthanasia 
• Torah bans suicide - assisted suicide is wrong 
• Voluntary euthanasia can be seen as the same as assisted suicide 
• Murder banned in Ten Commandments 
• Tenakh - death and life of someone is in the hands of God 

2 - Some Jews 

• Don't allow euthanasia but accept switching off life-support or not 'striving to stay alive' 
• Some rabbis have said switching off life-support for the brain-dead isn't euthanasia 
• Brain-dead - God has already taken their life 
• Striving to keep someone alive is prevent God from taking their soul - against God's wishes