Medical science has created a new ethical issue -- having to make end-of-life decisions. I suspect few of us reach middle age without being involved in gut-wrenching decisions about feeding tubes and ventilators for a loved one who would otherwise be dead. I believe we alive today are the first generations to face making decisions about whether a loved one should be allowed to die.
I found a newspaper advice column about making end-of-life decisions for an elderly parent. A Buddhist priest and Baptist minister both provided the same advice -- there comes a time when it's all right to stop fighting death and instead be supportive of our loved ones' process of transition.
I don't know exactly what most of the world's religions teach about this, however. Possibly many are still wondering that themselves.
In this case, the adult children of an elderly, dying woman write that their mother wants to be "allowed" to die. It sounds as if she wants to stop aggressive medical treatment and let her condition take its natural course. Particularly when treatments are unpleasant and only postponing the inevitable, that's a reasonable decision.
A couple of years ago it was found that Medicare -- the U.S. government program that pays for medical care for people over age 65-- spent $55 billion in one year for medical care in the last two months of life, and 20 to 30 percent of those expenses provided no help to the patient.
The article linked above goes on to say that many patients spend their last few days sedated so they can endure painful treatments or don't pull out their feeding or breathing tubes. And often, their doctors know full well the patient is in his last days.
But, as a society, we don't seem to know how to talk about this issue. Some of us can't even face it rationally. A couple of years ago, a bit of legislation meant to encourage doctors to counsel patients and loved ones about end of life decisions was shot down by hysteria over "death panels."
Buddhism encourages us to be mindful that life is impermanent. The manner in which one dies is important in most schools; a gentle, peaceful transition is thought to be beneficial to rebirth. The transition continues for a time after life signs have ceased, and the living continue to recite prayers to aid the journey between death and rebirth. In Soto Zen, the final service for the dead takes place 45 days after "medical" death, and then the loved one is completely released.
As Buddhists, there is definitely a point at which it's far better to acknowledge death and respect the process of dying rather than fight it to the bitter end with tubes and drugs and needles. I suspect that is true of the other religions of the world as well, even if they understand death a bit differently.
However --
If you live in the U.S. you must remember the Terri Schiavo case, which culminated in Ms. Schiavo's highly publicized death in 2005. I don't want to repeat the detailed history of the case here, but if you need to review, there are extensive archives of articles in Atheism and U.S. Politics.
In brief, Schiavo, then in her 20s, suffered cardiac arrest in 1990 and never regained consciousness. Her husband took her to highly respected doctors and medical centers, but her condition did not change. Physicians concluded her brain was too damaged for her to regain consciousness.
All this time, she had been kept alive by a feeding tube. In 1998, Michael Schiavo petitioned a court to allow the feeding tube to be removed so she could die. Her parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, contested this.� For the next several years, Schiavo and the Schindlers filed one motion and appeal after another and battled through multiple trials and hearings.
Eventually the governor and legislature of Florida got involved, and then the President and U.S. Congress, and cable news channels began to follow the story obsessively if not accurately. I was reading about the case in depth and realized that most of the "information" being presented to the public on television didn't come anywhere close to the verifiable facts of the case.
At one point I flipped on a cable news program and saw an entire bank of Christian ministers -- plus Pat Boone, for some reason -- arranged on the screen like a tic-tac-toe board (although with more boxes). And all of them were siding the Schindlers and bearing false witness against Michael Schiavo as fast as they could move their lips.
In spite of the hysterically biased and nearly fact-free television news coverage, the American public overwhelmingly sided with Michael Schiavo, saying he was justified in having his wife's feeding tube removed and that government and the gasbags should butt out. This gave me hope for the future of humankind.
In the end, an autopsy revealed that the parts of Ms. Schiavo's brain that supported consciousness, thinking, memory, personality, or anything else pointing to an experience of life were gone, and had probably been gone for many years. All the media reports that she was alert and responsive were fantasies and lies.
But this takes us back to the role of religion in end-of-life decisions. In this case, the mostly evangelical Christian ministers (plus Pat Boone) who were put in front of cameras to speak for religion, all seemed to think the "ethical" thing was to deny death and keep an insensitive body alive through a feeding tube.
But why would they think that? I used to be a Christian and remember Christian doctrine pretty well, and I don't remember any doctrine specifically about keeping people alive through artificial means even when they can't possibly "live" again. Of course, in Jesus' day, they hadn't yet invented feeding tubes.
I think what really happened is that emotion formed the ministers' (and Pat Boone's) opinions, and they felt Jesus must agree with them, well, because. And yes, sometimes religion is little more than ignorance wearing a good suit.
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