is this suicide?

[photosynthesis]

[quote name='StatingTheObvious' date='Nov 12 2005, 08:30 AM']oxygenfromgreenleaves,  i think the Mother was trying to say that only God can know for sure what the motives situations are.  i don't think the church has ever said somebody's gone to hell.  it does say stuff like 'if you do X for Y reasons, your going to hell.'  only God knows for sure and can judge somebody on the Y reasons.  chill out dude and accept the fact you can't know for sure until you get to his new neighborhood and truy to look him up.
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My question wasn't, "did he go to hell?" it was, "did he commit suicide?"

I know that you can never really guage the mercy of God, and who knows what he said when he met the Father when he died. There are many people who are living on dialysis, and I know that Peter struggled with the question, "is it morally licit to stop dialysis, or am I bound to accept the suffering?"

[quote name='MichaelFilo' date='Nov 12 2005, 11:30 AM']dialysis is not something that was available in the garden of Eden. Food was, water was, oxygen was. No one, no matter what their reason, is morally bound to try to save their life.
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Yeah, but Adam and Eve never got sick. Their kidneys worked just fine. There are a heck of a lot of things out there that were never available in the garden of Eden. insulin, surgery, any medicine, dialysis, chemotherapy, radiation, antibiotics... and that was OK, because no one in the garden of Eden got sick!

By that logic, no one would ever have to have any medical treatment whatsoever.

[quote name='MichaelFilo' date='Nov 12 2005, 11:30 AM']Whatever the reason for not taking dialysis treatment, even if it were depression, cannot be called morally incorrect. Why? Because dialysis is extraordinary. Depression is something seperate and evne if it wer ethe cause to stop receiving treatment cannot be connected with suicide since the man was as good as dead had it not beed for extraordinary means anyway.

Whether it was "right" or "wrong" to leave his faimly is something that is not of mortal proportions because he did nothing but let nature run her course and stopped trying to stop her.
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"Good as dead?" I'm sorry, but I can't accept that.

if his parents decided that Peter was "good as dead," when his kidneys failed, and didn't put him on dialysis, then he would have died at the age of 3 and I never would have had the opportunity to know him. He was my best friend. If he were alive and healthy right now, I have no doubt that we would be engaged and planning a wedding.

I don't think anyone is "good as dead."

[philothea]

Still can't fathom having [i]your blood removed from your body[/i] and pumped through extremely expensive and high-tech filters not being unquestionably extraordinary!

[photosynthesis]

[quote name='philothea' date='Nov 12 2005, 02:07 PM']Still can't fathom having [i]your blood removed from your body[/i] and pumped through extremely expensive and high-tech filters not being unquestionably extraordinary!
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yeah, I guess so... Peter hated hemodialysis. He did the other kind. His dad did hemo, though.

I know that the treatment was readily available for them, and that it wasn't putting strain on their finances because they had health insurance (which they lost when his father died.)

[MichaelFilo]

I always come across as being incrediably cruel and emotionless; sometimes I fear it is because I am. Either way, let me at least try to clarify.

What I meant by the garden of Eden was any time prior to the extraordinary medical advances we had today, so I figured the start of it all would be nice. I still think it's not a shoddy example since Adam and Eve got all that they ordinarly needed to live. Anything that was not provided there maybe considered extraordinary.

To quote:

"By that logic, no one would ever have to have any medical treatment whatsoever."

I agree, no one is ever bound morally to receive any medicine. All medicine is extraordinary; all surgery is extraordinary; all means of completing body functions without using the intended body part is extraordinary. (Terri Schiavo should immediatly pop into your head. I must contend that receiving food is ordinary, using a tube to do so is not. However, in her case there was no visible reason to imagine that she wanted to cease to be treated through a tube.)


When I say "good as dead" I do not mean their life is forfieted, I mean that at any given time the disease may overcome and destroy them by natural means. That is, they are living on using extraordinary measures and thus their life is solely depended on those measures. That is what I mean by "good as dead", not that they are worthless.


I'm sorry if I've offended you. I probably am not the proper type of person to comment on such an issue. I think that my influences have desensitized me too much. Please forgive me if I have said anything wrong.

God bless,
Mikey

[photosynthesis]

[quote name='MichaelFilo' date='Nov 12 2005, 06:40 PM']I agree, no one is ever bound morally to receive any medicine. All medicine is extraordinary; all surgery is extraordinary; all means of completing body functions without using the intended body part is extraordinary. (Terri Schiavo should immediatly pop into your head. I must contend that receiving food is ordinary, using a tube to do so is not. However, in her case there was no visible reason to imagine that she wanted to cease to be treated through a tube.)
When I say  "good as dead" I do not mean their life is forfieted, I mean that at any given time the disease may overcome and destroy them by natural means. That is, they are living on using extraordinary measures and thus their life is solely depended on those measures. That is what I mean by "good as dead", not that they are worthless.

I'm sorry if I've offended you. I probably am not the proper type of person to comment on such an issue. I think that my influences have desensitized me too much. Please forgive me if I have said anything wrong.
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I guess I can see your point. Don't worry about offending me, I forgive you...

As far as feeding tubes go, I remember someone was saying something about cost being an issue, and that dialysis was expensive. After awhile, Peter suffered from severe nausea, and he was unable to eat without vomiting. So his doctors decided to put a feeding tube in. As far as cost was concerned, health insurance did not cover the cost of his liquid food, and it was actually more expensive for his family to feed him than it was to give him peritoneal dialysis.

also, if all surgery or medical treatments were considered extraordinary means, then what about the procedure to implant a gastrostomy/jejeunostomy tube, or to insert an nasogastric or nasojejeunal tube? Food and water are ordinary, but what about using medical technology to deliver such things?

I submit to whatever the Church teaches about this, I'm just not really sure what it is

also, what about mechanical respiration? I suppose that would fall under the same category as dialysis? Although not all forms of dialysis are mechanical...

[MichaelFilo]

I mean to say, whatever isn't available to cure someone without some sort of human intervention is extraordinary. Basically, if it doesn't grow or doesn't walk, it's extraordinary.

As far as I know, there has been no infalliable statement about the subject. Just an encylical (maybe?). I think it was Human Vitae (although, I maybe wrong). I'm not terribly knowledgable about the subject either.

God bless,
Mikey

[Socrates]

[quote name='MichaelFilo' date='Nov 13 2005, 09:34 PM']I mean to say, whatever isn't available to cure someone without some sort of human intervention is extraordinary. Basically, if it doesn't grow or doesn't walk, it's extraordinary.
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????

This post makes no sense!

[Socrates]

[double post]

Edited November 14, 2005 by Socrates

[photosynthesis]

[quote name='MichaelFilo' date='Nov 13 2005, 09:34 PM']I mean to say, whatever isn't available to cure someone without some sort of human intervention is extraordinary. Basically, if it doesn't grow or doesn't walk, it's extraordinary.
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???

but with that logic, feeding tubes would be extraordinary, since they require human intervention. Plus the stuff they use for tube feedings isn't like normal food. They don't just puree a cheeseburger and put it through a tube. It's pretty high-tech.

I don't understand why it's OK for my friend's dad to abandon his wife and kids and stop dialysis, but it's bad to stop someone's tube feedings? To me, the difference was that Terri Sciavo didn't have a choice, but my friend's dad had a choice. Food and water are ordinary, but I'm not seeing how food delivered through a gastrostomy tube is not extraordinary.

[photosynthesis]

[quote name='Socrates' date='Nov 13 2005, 09:44 PM']???? 

This post makes no sense!
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yeah, it confused me too... glad to know I wasn't the only one

[jasJis]

photo,
I think it's a gray area for this particualr case. Suicide, as defined by the Church, would be the intentional taking of one's life. On the otherhand, we are accorded the right and responsibility to make our own choice when deciding what 'extraodinary means' are used to keep us alive. Extraodinary would be what is beyond normal care and medical help. Food, water, basic care. It is the person recieving the treatments choice to evaluate the effects and demands on themselves and family and decide whether to continue or not.

If the father solely was to choose to cease dialysis because of purely selfish reasons, then it's suicide. If it was a mixed bag or reasons (which it seems to have been), then leave it to Gods mercy and justice to know and judge correctly.

[photosynthesis]

I suppose so...

I don't like gray areas.

[philothea]

There might also be some detail in the effect. Avoiding a feeding tube means the patient starves to death. No one should starve to death. Same for removing an IV. No one should die of dehydration.

Avoiding dialysis means dying of kidney failure. This is pretty common. Everyone will die of kidney failure eventually if they live long enough.

(this is kind of a depressing topic)

[photosynthesis]

[quote name='philothea' date='Nov 13 2005, 10:33 PM']There might also be some detail in the effect.  Avoiding a feeding tube means the patient starves to death.  No one should starve to death.  Same for removing an IV. No one should die of dehydration.

Avoiding dialysis means dying of kidney failure.  This is pretty common.  Everyone will die of kidney failure eventually if they live long enough.

(this is kind of a depressing topic)
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Not everyone died of kidney failure. While eventually our bodies all will stop functioning, kidney failure isn't the cause of all death.

I guess I've been kind of a depressing person lately.

[photosynthesis]

sorry if I made anyone sad.