Physician Assisted Suicide Comparative Religious Ethics

Physician Assisted Suicide RST-331-20 Comparative Religious Ethics Brian D. Berry, Ph.D. Fall 2014 Physician Assisted Suicide 2 Physician Assisted Suicide is defined as suicide committed with the aid of a physician who facilitates a patient’s death by providing the necessary means and or information to perform the life ending act. The physician provides sleeping pills and information about the lethal dose, which is fully aware the patient will commit suicide. The patients who are seeking assistance are likely terminally ill and are suffering from a painful and most likely terminal illness. They have gone through life’s journey and are facing the end and have come to the final decision that death is†¦show more content†¦The patients receive a lethal prescription from their doctor that they administer themselves. Doctors in Oregon do not have to fear prosecution from legal authorities, physician assisted suicides are legal in Oregon. Suicide is not a new concept; it has been around for a while. It is the actual intention of killing oneself. We can look to scripture where we find the apostle Judas who was depressed and felt an enormous amount of guilt from betraying Jesus Christ to the Roman authorities. Judas committed suicide after feelings of desperation swept over him. Suicide is often associated with feelings of despair and crisis situations. Views about suicides in society have changed previously suicides were punishable by law. The Abrahamic religions traditionally consider suicide an offense towards God. The Catholic Church teaches that human life is the most basic gift from God. Every human life is sacred from conception to natural death. We are given stewardship over our lives but not absolute dominion. The worth of a human life should not be determined by an illness or disease. The Church teaches that Physician Assisted Suicide is like murder becomes it involves taking an innocent life. We begin to em bark on what is known as a slippery slope if we begin to accept assisted suicide as a rational choice. The slippery slope is real and the Dutch who have years allowed physicians to practice assisted suicides with impunity, supposedly only in cases where

Education Is The Civil Rights Issue Of Our Time - 1120 Words

President Donald Trump stated that â€Å"education is the civil rights issue of our time†. On this issue, I cannot disagree with him. I too believe that education is the civil rights issue of our time, undoubtedly. There are many other issues that could be rationalized as â€Å"the issue of our time†, such as LGBTQIA concerns, police violence, continuing racial issues, war, income equality, the justice system, or many others. But, the reason I believe education is at the forefront, is because the above-stated list can all be traced back to a failing education system. To go further, all of the above issues could begin to start showing improvement, if we invested more time into our education system. While I do agree with President Trump on the issue,†¦show more content†¦What if the reason our country is so divided on many issues is because of an unequal education system? For example, we have issues with understanding differing identities, such as those of the LG BTQIA, because we have not used education to help our youth understand basic ethical and empathetic values. Rather than seeing each other as American Citizens, we provide a differing label that we are unfamiliar with. We allow a difference in beliefs, or perspective, to demean what someone is behind their identity; another human being in pursuit of their own happiness just like everyone else. Elaborating further on each individual’s pursuit of happiness, what about those that are subjected to an unfair justice system? The current justice system could easily be another case for being the civil rights issue of our time, because of its unjust means. It is a system that targets more of America’s poor, than the rich. Not just because the poor commit more crimes, but because the rich are more likely to escape imprisonment due to their status. It is an illusion that exists in which we believe the poor commit more crimes. But, in reality, they are just punished harsher, subjected to more criminal influences in terms of survival needs, or unable to obtain worthy defense representation in the courts. But, why all this? Because our education system as of now does not provide equal means of class ascent as we assume it to be. The education system is disproportionate in terms ofShow MoreRelatedWhile I Have Elaborated On Why I Believe Education To Be1221 Words   |  5 PagesWhile I have elaborated on why I believe education to be the civil rights issue of our time, does it hold merit? Does the issue of education warrant being discussed in terms of civil rights? In speaking of education in the same area of civil rights, there are two articles that I would like to use in formulating my reasoning. First, I would like to call upon Elizabeth A. Armstrong’s Forging Gay Identities. Then, David Harvey’s Right to the City. 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Nazi police unit Free Essays

In Ordinary Men, Christopher Browning uses the example of one particularly brutal Nazi police unit in occupied Poland to explain how a group of seemingly normal individuals could participate in some of World War II’s worst atrocities. By examining the mixed reactions they showed as they carried out their orders, Browning rejects the most common arguments as to why they complied with the Final Solution and asserts that a combination of factors motivated ordinary men to become mass murderers. Reserve Police Battalion 101, a unit of the German Order Police (or â€Å"Orpo†), played a significant role in the Final Solution by serving as an occupation force in eastern Europe, rounding up Jews and political enemies of the Nazis, helping deport them to labor and death camps, and killing over 38,000 Jews between early 1942 and the end of 1943 (191). We will write a custom essay sample on Nazi police unit or any similar topic only for you Order Now Its ranks grew from 56,000 in 1933, when the Nazis assumed control and created an extra tier of internal security, to over 300,000 by 1942, when the Final Solution was implemented (4-7). Browning makes clear that the unit, which formed in Hamburg in early 1942, was not comprised of fanatical Nazis, rabid anti-Semites, or marginal members of society. The officers were mainly middle-class merchants and professionals (with some party members and only two members of the SS among them), while the ranks comprised blue-collar men who were not devout Nazis. Clearly, the men who committed mass murder were not marginal, violent criminals but solid citizens who were somehow transformed. The â€Å"Community† (Battalion 101) The battalion’s early operations reveal its ambivalence about its mission in Poland. The unit’s commander, Major Wilhelm Trapp, initially anguished over the orders to kill rather than simply deport Polish Jews, and its first major atrocity, the Jozefow Massacre of 13 July 1942, was hardly a coldly efficient operation by steely-nerved Nazis. The event, in which a Polish village’s 300 able-bodied Jewish men were deported to a labor camp while its 1,500 Jewish women, children, and elderly were gunned down, handled it inefficiently and with significant emotional division. Beset by drinking and sloppy methods, the unit took much of the day to carry out their orders and was initially ambivalent about the entire premise of their mission. Trapp even gave his troops the choice to refrain from the killing, which twelve did; over the next year, about twenty percent of the unit either never killed Jews or initially did but stopped. Browning remarks that the few who bowed out did so for a variety of reasons. They were so unprepared for the mission that they found it easier to follow orders than to think about their actions; many feared being labeled as â€Å"cowards† or â€Å"weak† by refusing to kill the unarmed; and, though few claimed to be avowed anti-Semites, â€Å"they had at least accepted the assimilation of the Jews into the image of the enemy . . . [that] was killing German women and children by bombing Germany† (73). Trapp adapted to his men’s emotional chaos by sending much smaller groups to kill, avoiding the division and discord and thus making Battalion 101 a more efficient killing operation. Another of its operations, a massacre at Lomazy on 17 August 1942, proved Trapp’s wisdom; the unit’s Second Company, with help from â€Å"Hiwis† (Slavic collaborators with the Nazis), slaughtered 1700 Jews in much less time than the Jozefow killings took. Browning comments, â€Å"Like much else, killing was something one could get used to† (85). Gradually, many of Battalion 101’s members became desensitized and some, like brutal, heavy-drinking Lieutenant Hartwig Gnade, actually came to enjoy their role as murderers. Even the worst were not monolithic Nazi madmen; they were still essentially normal men who struggled with their consciences but ultimately chose to become monsters. Still, despite the unit’s large number of murders and increasing prowess at killing, it was never wholly united and some members, like Lieutenant â€Å"Heinz Buchmann† (a pseudonym, which Browning uses for many of the principal figures), made no secret of their opposition to their actions, but Trapp never disciplined him, even giving Buchmann a transfer and a favorable recommendation later in the war. Also, some of the enlisted men refused to participate, facing some indirect punishments like taunting and unpleasant duties, though none faced serious disciplinary action for their dissent. Browning writes, â€Å"As long as there was no shortage of men willing to do the murderous job at hand, it was much easier to accommodate Buchmann and the men who emulated him than to make trouble over them† (103). In his final chapters, Browning makes clear that the battalion’s members did not consider their actions monstrous; they simply considered it a matter of following orders, and a few even thought that the Jews brought their fate on themselves by accepting it so passively. Others believed that murdering unsuspecting victims was humane, because â€Å"a quick death without the agony of anticipation was considered an example of human compassion† (155). When trying to find reasons for why such seemingly average men without violent histories had become such bloodthirsty, ruthless killers, the author weighs the most common of historians’ claims (racism, excessive obedience, the role of propaganda, war’s brutalization, and the bureaucratic division of labor) and argues that none was alone sufficient to cause the unit’s transformation. Instead, he implies that those factors’ combination, along with what author Primo Levi deemed a â€Å"gray zone† of â€Å"ambiguity which radiates out from regimes based on terror and obsequiousness† (187), allowed otherwise normal individuals to be transformed into murderers – and it could possibly happen again to another group of equally â€Å"ordinary† men. REFERENCES Browning, Christopher R. Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland. New York: HarperCollins, 1992. How to cite Nazi police unit, Papers