I had a lecture last semester over pretty much this same issue that you're dealing with. My prof.'s objective was to make his students think about things for themselves, and he succeeded with me. Here are my thoughts. I don't really agree with lifesupport. It is like you are playing God. To stop something life-threatening is interfering with God's plan. However, within the Hippocratic Oath that the doctor takes they are obliged to do EVERTHING that they can to stop the patient from dying. So what do you do now? The patient is alive, but they are a vegetable. Is it okay to just take that life away from them? Even if they can't speak, or move, or even breathe on their own they still have a soul. So if you take them off of lifesupport then it's like you're taking away their soul. Once again you are playing God just like when you put them on the support in the first place. So herein lies the question that is posted to Christians, can you take away the life of something that still has a soul? My opinion that I came up with is yes. God put them in that situation, and were it not for human interference we wouldn't have this problem. In this case two wrongs do make a right. Sure, survival stories are great about how someone came out of a 12 year coma after a paralyzing car accident. But wouldn't it be a better story if you didn't delay their coming to the Lord's side by 12 years. Honestly, which is a better headline, "Local man comes out of coma, paralyzed neck down for life" or "Local man dies in car accident, gets to meet his maker"? I like the latter myself. My professor said the most courageous thing he has done in his life was to take his wife off of life support. They were both fairly young, they had two daughters (one in high school at the time), and his entire family was against it. But he said that he didn't want his wife to suffer and be a vegetable, he didn't want to interfer with God's plan so he had his wife taken off the machines. That's a tough pill to swallow. I get teary-eyed whenever I think about it, but I truly think that was the best plan of action. He had the strength to let go instead of giving in to weakness and prolonging life (and probably pain) just so he could see her. wow, I'm sorry that was so long.
wow, I'm sorry that was so long.
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