The Undiscovered Country

Now I know . . .

. . . why after two days no one left a comment in my last entry.

At first I thought it's because no one loves me, or that suddenly my little boy wasn't cute anymore. *sniffle* (So I can be a drama queen at times. Deal with it *snicker*).

But! After reading your blogs (I still have mucho to catch up on), I've discovered some have left town, others are super busy, not even having time to write in theirs, and yet others are taking a short (I hope) hiatus.

What do you know, not everything is about me after all .

If'n you got time:

A friend and I talked earlier about assisted suicide, and in what situation (if at all) would you pull the plug on a loved one.

As a Christian and one who is supposed to treasure life, is it appropriate to believe there are circumstances when a person's life must end?

For instance, in "Million Dollar Baby" with Clint Eastwood and Hillary Swank (if you haven't seen it yet, but plan to, read no further!) Swank's character was paralyzed from the neck down and couldn't even breathe on her own. She asked Eastwood's character to kill her, because living had become torture. After much debate and soul-searching, he ended up giving her enough drugs her heart stopped.

Would I have done the same? I hope I can say yes. If I truly love someone, and there's no hope of recovery, where every breath is torture whether it be in pain or just in not being able to complete the most basic task such as breathing, then I have no choice but to pull the plug.

I also must look at it from God's point of view and ask, would he want someone to continue living in such a state? Are there not times when we must let nature take its course?

Now I could bring up the horrific circumstances of Terry Schivo. In that case I don't believe they should have removed her feeding tube. She still could function at some level both physically and mentally, and her parents were more than willing to take complete responsibility for her care.

The biggest factor was even without water she held on for seventeen days. Most people die after only three or four days without water. That tells me she still wanted to live.

What about you? Are there circumstances when you would pull the plug on a loved one? Or do you think people should do all they can (medically-speaking) to keep a person alive regardless of the hope of recovery?