Cittasanto wrote:Hi Annapurna,
I am sorry I have simmply looked at the ethics of the Parajika rule and this very situation described in the OP from multiple angles.
As one medical ethicist put it
Being informed about ethics in medicine does not necessarily mean one has to undergo medical training at university, however the scope of interest (be it ethics or
medicine itself) is delved into as the need to understand and find workable solutions are pressent.
Regarding the precept as my understanding has it, it does not dictate that one should force life upon someone. Deliberately killing them is (obviously) a breach, although allowing them to pass-on in accord with nature - when there is nothing else to be done for their benefit - is not necessarily a breach.
If one has a direct say in the life and death decision the best possible answer to stay in-line with the precepts is possibly "do what is best for the patient".
If you know that that may mean treatment is withheld due to the detrimental effects through a sufficiently reduced quality of life and life would be unbearable I do not believe it is a breach of any precept - medical or otherwise - to allow the person to die with dignity (passive euthanasia).
Hi, Cittasanto,
yes.
As I see it, laws are intended as a protection and should not cause more suffering.
Life-saving machines and life sustaining machines do not allow a helpless person to pass away, since we can always feed them through a tube, even if unconscious.
Like, Cittasanto, imagine someone has had an accident and fell into a coma, and is unable to drink and eat.
Still a hundred years ago this person would have died after a short time....their loved ones experiencing a sharp pain, but then it can heal.
Nowadays, unconscious people are often being kept alive, fed through a tube, the relatives can't let go, can't get over it, and their suffering seems to have no predictable end.
In the case of Tony, he would be dead by now, if medical staff had not saved him and would not continue to keep him alive, him, who would rather be dead.
I believe in free will.
It's such a difficult case.
Perhaps we need to see a case like this with the loving eyes of a mother, a spouse, to know in our hearts what is right.
I hope I will never be in this situation, not before I have become wiser than now.