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Sunday, Jul. 20, 2008

It's OK to end the pain and suffering

By Zack Rinderer, Community Conversation

Last month I participated in the Community Conversation about Initiative 1000: Death with Dignity Initiative. I was interestedin participating because as a nurse I have seen many people struggling at the end of their lives and making decisions about how to continue in that struggle.

My life's work has been to help ease pain and suffering. What I have seen and experienced in 29 years of nursing is that American culture doesn't have a very good understanding of how people should be allowed to die when all efforts have failed to provide them with a life without terrible pain and/or without being an unconscious living organism, a "vegetable."

The Community Conversation was well moderated and the people who spoke were personally and professionally involved in struggles at the end of life. There were points raised in support and against I-1000 which I understood and appreciated. I wasn't sure how I would vote on this issue but at the end of the two days I found myself supporting the initiative.

There are, in my opinion, two points to this issue. First, does an individual have the right to choose a direction for his or her life that is basic to the concepts in our American freedoms. Second, is there some kind of universal moral standard that prevents a human being from doing anything to end his or her ownlife.

The U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, countless laws and court decisions have recognized that a mentally competent individual's freedom to direct his or her own life is sacrosanct as long as it does not infringe on the rights or safety of other individuals. So the right to consider to end one's own life when there is only a limited time left and that time is one of suffering and possible existence in a vegetative state would appear to me to be a freedom that should not be restricted by the state.

The priest at last Sunday's Mass requested that the church community work against I-1000 because it would be a terrible law and it would be against God's law. Some at the Community Conversation also expressed theidea that the uniquenessof spirit or soul in human beings precludes theartificial ending of human life despite any sufferingor poor quality of exis-tence.

I disagree with both those in the Community Conversation and my church because I have seen the contradictory sides of religious organizations' rules and laws on too many important issues to believe that they can say what is and what isn't "God's law."

Arguments against capital punishment appear to contradict quotes from Jesus Christ (Matthew 18:06 and Mark 9:42) that child abusers should be hung with a millstone around their neck and thrown into the sea. One of the Ten Commandments is "Thou shalt not kill (or murder)," but as a veteran I have seen chaplains bless the efforts of troops before going into battle. "God's law," to me, is the simple understanding of loving God and loving my neighbor. Religious rules about personal choices are too contradictory and should be left between God and the individual, not the people who run churches.

I now believe that a person should have the legal right to consult with his or her physician about theterrible pain and suffering in his or her life and discuss all the options about what to do. And if one optionis to end that life then an individual should havethe ability to make that choice.

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