ViV Magazine Volume 4 (April - May 2014) ViV Magazine Volume 4 (April - May 2014) | Page 64

EUTHANASIA: To Live Or To Stop
Living, That Is The Question…
Four years which seemed like an eternity had elapsed since
Linda had suffered the abominable horseback riding accident
which had left her quadriplegic. Nailed for life to a hospital
bed, she lived in constant and excruciating pain, since no normal pain-killer could alleviate her misery, and only the morphine injections administered by her physician in cases of
extreme crisis granted her some relief.

This twenty year old young woman screamed in despair, begging her distressed parents and her helpless physician to put
an end to her miserable life. “Please help me go rest in peace,
I cannot stand it anymore, this is not a life”, she would constantly cry out.

“Life is a divine gift and God is the only one who can take it
away from you” were the words these broken-hearted and
very religious parents repeatedly pronounced in a consoling
manner to their skeleton-thin daughter. Yet they too, secretly
prayed their God to end her agony. Needless to say, her dedicated bedside physician was absolutely unwilling, a matter of
principle, to help her cross over to the hereafter.

But James, Linda’s high school sweetheart, who took it as a
sacred duty to visit her every day since the accident, finally
let himself be convinced by his beloved’s pleas and agreed to
help her swallow a bottle of sleeping pills, unable to continue
witnessing her never ending suffering. In a warm embrace, he
watched her slowly and peacefully drift away from this Valley
of Tears. He was charged with homicide for his loving and selfless gesture and is still paying his debt to society, locked up in
a cold prison cell.

Religion is one of the main obstacles as far as assisted suicide
is concerned. Religious leaders and moral teachers believe
that we do not own our existence, but only manage it, with a
moral obligation to care for our life and health. That we have
no absolute dominion over our life and as receivers of this
godly gift, we must never directly intend to cause our own
death or the death of an innocent victim, by action or o