Right to Die - Spirituality & the Cancer Patients
Please go through the plight of a cancer patient seeking judicial intervention for her right to die here.
In India, Euthanasia is not legal. There have been several petitions to the courts earlier too, and the best the courts have done is to direct the government to provide treatment. But cancer treatment is so expensive that it is beyond the reach of 95% of Indians. Government run hospital are not capapble of managing the advanced treatment. the figure mentioned in the story (Rs. 20 Lakh) is close to about 45,000 US Dollars, but is on the lower side of the cost of a Bone Marrow Transplant procedure.
Is it against spirituality to seek death? After all, we are all moving in that direction and no one in the history of humanity has been able to escape it. A few years earlier or later, does it really make that much of a difference in the entire journey of a soul? Why are people against Euthanasia? Does "Right to Life" enshrined in the constitutions of many countries as the fundamental right, include "Right to Die"?
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Capt. Anand Kumar on
-
During another court case where I was personally involved on behalf of a cancer patient, the Judge called the lawyer to the chamber and informed that while agreeing to all our arguments, his conscience did not permit to deliver a judgment favouring euthanasia as it will have the potential to be abused by unscrupulous elements. In a greed dominated society it is not easy to enforce safeguards even if one has thought of those carefully.
-
-
I totally agree with you. Only those who have felt the sufferings of a terminally ill cancer patient can fully appreciate the validity of your arguments.
Yet the question of working out appropriate safeguards is equally difficult. In a society, where children kill parents for money, what stops them from bribing a doctor to declare someone terminally ill and terminate his/her life? In a world full of medical malpractices stories, can the "conscience" of medical professionals be trusted with the life of someone?
-
Permalink Reply by Susan Thomas on
-
As a nurse with some hospice experience, I would like to weigh in. Dying is the most intensely personal experience that we will ever have. If a person asks you to help them die before the natural event occurs, just say NO. There is suffering, but that, too is intensely personal. If a person has truly decided to end their own life, they do not need any help. I watched a number of well-meaning and not so well meaning family members kill my hospice patients, I would not trouble you with any stories, but I am quite certain that none of the particular people who come to mind, truly wanted to or were actually ready to die. They certainly never verbalized that to me. In these cases governments have no power over the dying person, only the living persons that choose to "assist" them. You do not have to be a medical professional to figure out how to take too much morphine. IF you need someone else's permission, you are not ready. End of story. My personal beliefs about suicide don't enter in to this. My personal experiences of being asked to help are very real, and I know you can never be sure you are doing the right thing if you do help. Let nature take it's course, or stay out of it.
-
-
Al, your hospice team will be able to help you-sign up quickly.
-
Permalink Reply by Frank Reitemeyer on
-
Have cancer patients the right to live?
The patients for usual do not die from cancer, but from treatment of an insane anti-human allopathic medicine which is black magic from the theosophical point of view as they break the rules of nature.
A tumor is (usually) not a sign of sickness which must be destroyed, but is a sign of the healing program of nature.
Since decades multi billions of dollars have been thrown out of window. Science promised in the 1970'ies the victory over cancer within some years. In over 40 years no real progress, except the faking of statistics tec.
Theosophists should study the 'Iron Rule of Cancer' of Dr. Hamer who established the "Five biologicial laws" which proof that sickness is a special program of nature to recover and heal which must be supported rather than fighted against:
http://www.newmedicine.ca/excerpt.php
Dr. Hamer's discovery was proofed in 1998 at the Oncological Institute of the University of Trnavská at 20 patients by 10 lecturers and professors:
http://neue-medizin.net/uni-prag.html
Dr. Hamer is therefore persecuted and is in danger-for-life, surviving several attacks. His only son was shot to death by a (Jewish) fanatic. He is on the run since then, fled from insane authorites in Germany under fake impeachments, first to Spain, then to France, where he was jailed by a Jewish kangoroo court under fake impeachments and was tortured. Living like Dr. Kimble he is now in Norwegian exile.
Because Dr. Hamer does not admit the false and fake accusations he is labeled as an anti-semite, a nazi, a mass murder, a conspiracy theorist, if not soon a terrorist.
Dr. Hamer believes that the false believe system in the Jewish religion of good-evil dualism has led to a holocaust on cancer patients who are sentenced to death by conventional treatment. He speaks of 20 million victim patients in Germany alone.
Shelving the ideological points, Dr. Hamer's point of view is interesting from the theosophical poit of view. It seem that he is conform with Blavatsky and Purucker.
http://neue-medizin.net/uni-prag.html
-
-
Frank, some rational thought is required, particularly when it has the potential to mislead a cancer patient. Hearsay is not appropriate for the curious.
Please explain in detail what makes Dr. Hamer's proposal consistent with theosophy and the allopathic treatment inconsistent. Can theosophist afford to ignore the benefit millions of patients derive every day from allopathic treatments, including cancer patients. If the natural and spiritual cures worked on cancer a number of spiritual people would not have died of cancer., some of them the most advanced practitioner of Raja Yoga. Amongst the most successful of cancer chemotherapy medicines is the Taxol family (Paclitaxel and Docetaxel) which is derived from the bark of Yew tree. Does it make it natural cure?
Does allopathy kill? What killed the noted theosophist T Subba Row? HPB was a chain smoker. Did it kill her? Or shall we say that theosophy killed her.
There is quite a reliable website http://www.quackwatch.org. And sure enough Dr. Hamer figures there. You can read it yourself. What you chose to believe is another matter. From my personal experience, I can vouch that I have seen no alternative or spiritual therapy work so far in cancer. No prayers work. Just a few months ago, a leading light of Pranic Society in India who otherwise claimed to have cured many cases was taken by me to a terminally ill cancer patient who had a 10 cm large tumour in lung. The pranic healer claimed that it is not cancer but tuberculosis and there is no threat to life. The patient passed away three weeks later.
One of the greatest living exponent of Hath Yoga B K S Iyengar publicly claims that he cannot cure cancer. Although he has successfully treated several international celebrities, including music maestro Yehudi Menuin and the Queen of England of other ailments. Should we disbelieve him?
Rather than talking about some mysterious theory of cancer please convey to Dr. Hamer, that he will not be prosecuted in India, I will present to him as many cancer patients for trial as he may require. But the entire trial will be conducted strictly in accordance with the guidelines prescribed in allopathic system. He will have to document it properly and I will help him to get the government approval as well as work with the leading oncologists to ensure that the trials are conducted ethically and to the strictest clinical standards. The onus is upon him if wants to move away from the quackwatch pages.
-
-
I totally agree with you. No one is claiming that Allopathic system is perfect or the pharma companies are not greedy. But at least they give results. And the entire treatment system is well documented. In my last 14 years of interacting with cancer patients, I am yet to see one case where I could say with confidence that some other system of medicine helped a patient.
-
-
In some private conversation with friends recently it was pointed out to me that at times it is possible for a person's condition to be declared 'terminal' erroneously and some other option/choice may exist for that patient. If euthanasia is exercised then there is no correcting that error.
Can a safeguard be developed against such errors?
-
Permalink Reply by Ludo Van Dun on
-
Christians feel that you are somehow cheating god if you help a person to die.
What if a person is dieing, then god is "calling" him. If we save this persons life, are we interfering gods work, are we cheating then?
-
-
Thank You Paul, AI and Ludo for your comments. Without bringing religion into the picture, could we have some thoughts on how to prevent a case being declared "terminal" erroneously or how to prevent some unscrupulous relatives giving consent for euthanasia where it may not be required.
-
ModeratorPermalink Reply by John on -
Societal Government is to govern the Society. An individual's personal health is between them and their Doctor. Do we choose to worry about unscrupulous relatives, or is it not better to worry about unscrupulous Governments and powerful unscrupulous organizations etc. etc. . First on the list is to protect people from the latter. Education is the best defense for every Individual.
Give individuals education and freedom. Freedom to make these decisions belongs back into the hands God originally put them into. The person him/her self.
I would not worry about a leaf. Work on the rampant forest fire. That will benefit many people.
john
-
Permalink Reply by Hari Menon on
-
Dear Captain ,
I know of some specific instances , all were similar and you could say a type of 'euthanasia' in all three cases the ailing person made his/her children to promise that whatever the case they (the children) were not to take them to the hospital for prolonging life through artificial means . In all cases the ailing people were aged and suffering from deteriorating conditions indigent to old age . In short they wanted to die a natural death and at home. I personally believe that there are millions of such cases . In fact from where I come -more and more old people are insisting that they do not want to die in a hospital and children do mostly follow the instructions. Imagine the folly of putting an 89 year old in ICU on a ventilator and subjecting the person to Dialysis !!!. Another fact about dying is that the person dying is not always aware of the pain as many are wont to think - the dying person grimaces and twists and turns AS if in pain due to the involuntary reactions which are purely muscular but the actual conciousness of the person has withdrawn inwards and moving away from the vital organs - a classic case where the onlooker superimposes the imagined pain of the patient and suffers himself !!. Everyone dies when the heart stops beating irrespective of the diagnosed cause.
© 2024 Created by Theosophy Network.
Powered by
