Euthanasia

(the shortening of a severe deadly struggle)

For almost seventeen years I´ve been working as a specialized nurse in the Ward of Intensive Care and I often care for people who finish their lives in difficulties and undescribable pains. I haven´t talked to anybody about this so far, but when I see these people suffering without a chance of recovery, I always ask myself the question if there is still some sense to their lives.

If not, wouldn´t it be an expression of humaneness to help free these people from suffering through the shortening of their lives if they themselves agree with it? It is their life they would decide about, so why not fulfill their last wish?

I would like to be in the clear about this matter. Can you, please, offer me your point of view for consideration?

The correct answer to this question is conditioned by understanding the fact that often exactly in the state of the greatest suffering a man manages to seek and understand due to the intensification of deepened sensitiveness induced in this way what he has not managed in the state of relative peace throughout his whole life, in order to be able to continue further his spiritual rise. Directly said, a single minute of the intensive experiencing of pain on the basis of the unsustainable development of a disease can often equal in its value even decades of the earhly life lived, unfortunately, unconsciously superficially. The intensity of experiencing fundamentally changes the perception of time and thus gives it a different value. At the moment before the arrival of death, each second of life has a particularly significant meaning for the spiritual maturation of a man.

Nevertheless, let us ask the key question of this affair: How can a man at the time of the so-called last minute of life, in the state of heightened sensitivity, understand a certain important meaning if this minute has been violently taken away from him by the inapprehensive approach of the doctor or the relatives? From this perspective it is possible to view euthanasia as a rough interference with a person´s life with far-reaching consequences for his or her further spiritual development.

This is also true for the case when an injured man finds himself in the state of deep unconsciousness and is not capable of perceiving the reality with the basic senses of the daily consciousness. Human consciousness projects itself on more levels at the same time, which means that it exceeds the limits of the daily consciousness itself. So if a person´s daily sensual consciousness is not fully activated as a result of brain malfunction, it does not mean that he or she does not perceive emotionally. The results of the research of clinical death conducted by well-known thanatologists clearly confirm this multi-level structure of human consciousness. These scientists have even found out that a person who does not perceive with his or her daily consciousness can concentrate intuition in a greater measure, which enables him or her a faster cognition of the reality in its true essence.

Of course, we are not saying here that a person should be violently kept alive for a long time, e.g. by means of artificial ventilation just in order not to die. That would be just pouring out the baby with the bathwater! In every case the wisdom is true that as it is not right to violently shorten somebody´s life prematurely, so it is not possible to maintain it artificially without unfavourable consequences, either. Especially in this matter, each case is necessary to be examined strictly individually before reaching the final decision.

A few more words to the question of euthanasia:

A person believing in God and His Love has surely understood that the possibility of life is a granted gift, not an unconditional possession. How can a man – from the moral point of view – definitely decide about something that does not belong to him?

If God is the granter of life, then He alone has the right to terminate a human life through the just working of His Laws. Moreover, we can add that the suffering person is usually not able to think objectively under the influence of pain, and therefore his or her will should not be taken as the only decisive factor in the question of life and death.

It is something else if the closest people try to help the suffering person endure the pain or they try to moderate it in a caring way. However, from the moral and spiritual points of view it is not possible to identify this with the intention to shorten one´s life. On the contrary, this is a great possibility of the spiritual progress of all the concerned, no matter how unpleasant and restraining from the possibility of enjoying fun and entertainment it may seem from the perspective of nowadays society.

Death is an utterly grave landmark in a person´s life. Today´s society must find the correct responsible attitude also to this moment of life – in the clarification of the true meaning of the terrestrial death – the person´s transition into another existential level of his or her being.

T.L.

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