ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, April 29, 1996 TAG: 9604290092
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A5 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: READERS FORUM
TYPE: LETTER
No one should have to suffer so
THIS IS a difficult question for me, not because the answer is hard but because the memories that prompt the answer are buried very deeply. I watched my father die of cancer. I lived with him at the time. While he pursued all options of treatment, there came a point when he realized that treatment was futile.
His last few weeks in Lewis-Gale Hospital are deeply etched in my memory. He no longer looked like himself. He was hooked up to a machine that would dispense morphine at the touch of a button, but he couldn't press the button enough to alleviate the pain. Toward the end, he couldn't press the button at all. For people who haven't lost a family member to cancer, I don't know how quite to explain it.
There was a movie, ``Terms of Endearment,'' that I think won several Academy Awards. It was about a woman who was dying of cancer. I left the movie early. It was a farce compared to the real agony that one suffers during the last weeks or even months.
I would describe to you the look of someone in that condition, but it would do nothing more than to open old wounds in my family that time has somehow lessened. And it wouldn't change the ideas of those that haven't experienced a loss in this way. But I can tell you that a righteous God wouldn't have meant for anyone to suffer so, and to interpret otherwise is fallacy.
Death with dignity, when there's no other alternative, is a noble goal. But you have to have walked in my shoes and seen what I've seen to reach that conclusion. Heaven help you if you must see it from my father's perspective.
HENRY SCHOLZ IV
ROANOKE
Rights stop short of suicide
I AM A born-again believer in the Lord Jesus Christ who believes that if a terminally ill person chooses to hasten his or her life by refusing medications and/or medical treatment, the individual must and should have the right to do so. However, it's wrong for a terminally ill person to take his or her own life by committing suicide.
CHUCK AARON
ROANOKE
Consult only with God, the life-giver
LET US define life (per Webster): ``That property of plants and animals which makes it possible for them to take in food, get energy from it, grow, etc.'' Now let's look at Webster's word ``terminal'': ``concluding, final; close to causing death.'' From these two definitions, we can conclude that if one can no longer take in food, get energy from it, grow, etc., he or she has concluded life as we know it and is close to death or in the final stage of life. Death is imminent.
This question can only be answered on a one-to-one basis. Our life is the one thing in this world that belongs to us exclusively, and what we do with it is strictly between each individual and God. God is the only one to be considered in any decision made regarding life, since he gave it, and neither doctors, lawyers nor clergy have the right to make that decision for another. Thus, they should have no say in the termination of life.
ELAINE P. TURNER
ROANOKE
A doctor's help will be welcome
FOR SOME thousands of years, religions have been fighting over the souls of the human race. Now, they're fighting over our bodies.
The pope and the Catholic Church adamantly oppose hastening the death of any person, as do some other more conservative religions. But they cannot and will not speak for me.
I'm 70 years old, and am approaching the time when I'll become ill and infirm. Each person has a right, in some cases, to determine when he or she dies. And if I'm in pain and helpless, I'll welcome being helped to die by some sympathetic doctor.
C. JAMES HODGES
FINCASTLE
If it's beyond repair, let it go
YES, yes, a thousand times yes! If you believe in life after life, why be forced to hang painfully on to this vehicle when it's worn out?
I want my family and friends to wish me well, send me off to the next life, and go on with their own. If they have to call in a scientist to figure out how to turn me off fairly painlessly, so be it.
JEFFREY L. BEHRENS
SALEM
A suffering deathor a nobler one?
MY FATHER would have been 67 years old. A former runner, he was diagnosed with colon cancer in February 1995, and died in December after the cancer had spread to his liver. Nine months of suffering through the physical pain of his organs shutting down - while his family struggled helplessly with the mental anguish of seeing an independent, energetic man slowly deteriorate.
I repeatedly tried to imagine how my father must have felt knowing that he wouldn't live to see the new year, the next spring, and possibly the next birth of a grandchild. I came to the same conclusion every time: No one can imagine this, and so I have no doubt in my mind that the terminally ill should have the right to hasten death.
I think a lot of people think of death as the end. But in my father's case, I try to think of it as a new beginning without pain. Morally, many don't want to have to be burdened by the decision of ending a life. But I know that if I had had the option, I would have wanted to help ease my father's pain by enabling him to die a nobler death.
MICHELLE GEREAUX KARIM
ROANOKE
Ease the pain, but don't hasten death
THE TERMINALLY ill shouldn't have the right to hasten death if it calls for action and assistance of others. They have that self-right already. Otherwise, it's murder. Death needs no more assistance. Easing the pain of its process is preferable to hastening it.
LUCILLE HUMPHRIES
SALEM
When no hope's left, help them out
I HAVE spent the past four-and-a-half years working at a veterinary hospital. Every single staff member there shares my love and devotion for animals. Nevertheless, in cases where animals are brought in severely injured or with a serious ailment that has deteriorated their quality of life, we do the kindest and most caring thing we can for them - put them "to sleep." There's no reason to prolong their agony.
The same holds true for people. I know that if I was the one diagnosed with a terminal illness, I'd like the option to end my life while I can still say it was good. Why put anyone through any type of painful, disheartening journey when the end is known to be the same either way?
We need to offer a kind and caring hand to our brothers and sisters. We need to offer them an escape to peace when there's no hope left.
KIMBERLY ANNE PRISCO
BLACKSBURG
It's a matter of individual rights
THE QUESTION isn't: "Should the terminally ill have the right to hasten death?" That question of individual rights was answered years ago by the Constitution. The real question is: "Why do others believe they have a right to interfere and intrude with individual rights?"
CLARENCE MILBOURN
BOONES MILL
The Bible gives the answer
MY ANSWER is no. Only God has the right. And in the Bible it says that if you take your own life, you will not be forgiven.
NADINE A. SCHOONOVER
ROANOKE
LENGTH: Long : 146 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: BARBARA CUMMINGS/LOS ANGELES TIMESby CNB