Making end-of-life decisions: The problems with advance directives

“[M]any advance directives create a presumption in favor of death and efficiency (and an all-out avoidance of suffering) over the sanctity of human life.” -CPost

Discussion

A guy at my church wrote a book about this. He is an attorney who practices estate planning. I’ll post the book when I get home.

We recently had a family member die of cancer and were thankful for her letting us know her desires for the end of her life. She had also pre-paid and pre-planned her funeral, saving the family the need for making decisions under pressure. She had also made the decision that, if doctors determined that her condition was terminal, that she would be kept pain-free and allowed to “go see Jesus when he calls me home”. She also opted for no chemo therapy at the end saying, “I don’t want to spend the last weeks I have on earth losing my hair and puking in a toilet”.

I’ve also been in a hospital room as a pastor and seen family members (not mine) demanding that the doctors keep using the defibrillator paddles to “keep Uncle Charlie here” until the doctors refused to only be subjected to curses and threats from the family.

"Some things are of that nature as to make one's fancy chuckle, while his heart doth ache." John Bunyan

A shameless plug/promo for my own book (my ONLY book [so far] )

Based on my BJU doctoral dissertation, looking at Historical, Biblical, Ethical, Medical, and Legal aspects of this issue:

Amazon

CBD

Wally Morris

Charity Baptist Church

Huntington, IN

amomentofcharity.blogspot.com