Physician Assisted Suicide

Many states have enacted or are in the process of enacting Death With Dignity laws, or, Physician Assisted Suicide by another name. I honestly can’t decide how I feel about this. My wife battled her cancer through four years of treatments, surgeries, chemo, radiation and countless tests and procedures. In the end, none of it mattered and her last days were lived with much pain. I ask myself, would she have chosen to end her life early if given the option, rather than go through such suffering in those last days? I, in my heart, know absolutely that the answer is no. Karen knew where she was going, she was secure in her faith and her salvation and still she wanted to be with her family and the ones she loved for every last available moment.
Maybe love has something to do with it. She was so loved and loved so many, that is what made hanging on to the end possible to bear. I cant and won’t speak, nor judge another in this matter. Motives could be countless. Maybe someone doesn’t really have that love, or close family at hand. Maybe they don’t want to put their family through what those days can bring. Maybe they just don’t want to suffer. I don’t know
I wonder about physicians who opt to assist these people in their wishes. That must be a hard choice to make. I can’t imagine. I also wonder about the long term repercussions about laws like this. Could they be gateways to other forms of euthanasia at some point? I mean, if a practice like this becomes acceptable and status quo to the masses, then at some point, with rising health care costs and other social woes, does it then become palatable to consider Assisting the mentally or physically unfirm to end their days? Then when our aging population becomes a burden do we begin to consider that maybe a certain age is a point where a person becomes expendable for the common good of society? I shudder to think.
I have sought the Lord in this. I have prayed deeply and meditated. I don’t have a solid, steadfast answer. What I do know is this. It’s important for every last person to know who Jesus is before their day comes. I don’t want anyone to go to the graveyard without that
I know this also. On that day for Karen, she was at home where she wanted to be, and where she should have been. She was surrounded by many. I held her as she went to be with the Lord. There were twelve of us here at that moment and to a person, every last one of us, knew beyond a doubt that the Lord had been in our midst. On the absolute very worst day in my life, the day I lost the love of my life, we were all of us praising God and singing. I now understand what it means to be in heaven and have no more pain, no more suffering, no more tears. I received just a glimpse that day. I kind of felt like Moses when the Lord told him to hide himself in the cleft of the rock and he would pass by. God passed by that day, that was my assurance. When you are in the presence of the Lord, You cannot help but praise him. The heavenly host was here that day. Karen was carried home in the arms of the Lord. That, my friends, is death with dignity.
march on