One must not yield to another person’s criticism of false compassion. To yield to such a criticism is denying your responsibility to the burden of your freedom.

Do what you think you must, as long as you know you are doing it for the right reasons.

yeah do what we think we want and what my family want.

i hope that the doctor can kill me when i am suffering and the medical bills are too much. hope that my family will understand also when the time is up.

rather than let the money manage by another lousy CFO why not let my family have the money at leat they can benefit physically if not mentally.

i think have to discuss with the family.

What’s the real concern for legalising euthanasia? Escalating healthcare costs and minimise the hospital’s risk to bad debt?

But if you die and enter the Pearly Gate, let me warn you in advance. We also install ERP there. So remember to top up your IU card before you die.

It’s a really difficult issue actually, and not just a religious one. My question though, is… why now?!!!

Father vs Son, who is wiser:

MM: Have the unhappiness once, done with it

PM: beep, beep, beep, they get angry, never mind

MM: just squeeze on the Certificate Of Euthanasia (COE)

PM: they get to choose die but go heaven must pay gantry fee at Pearly Gates (squeeze both COE & ERP)

Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter.

If you say, “But we knew nothing about this,” does not He who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who guards your life know it? Will he not repay each person according to what he has done? Proverbs 24:11-12

I wonder what the conversation would be if the trinity figures are:

1. The Father – MM Lee KY
2. The Son – PM Les HL
3. The Holy Ghost – former President Ong Teng Cheong

Legalising organ transplant seems to fit pretty well with euthanasia, allow the people to die…but harvest whatever that is left of their functioning organs..maybe i’m being too cynical but we all know that everything in SG is driven by the bottomline, there must be a reason….

Just want to share two points from the point of view of a Catholic:

1. Suffering is a call. It is a call to be co-redeemers with Jesus Christ. By offering our sufferings for the salvation of mankind or for the souls in purgatory, we become co-redeemers with Christ. This is why so many saints throughout the ages have suffered for the greater glory of God.

Who then can judge suffering except the ones suffering? Who can decide at which point the suffering ones should stop suffering and die? Who has the right to strip this dignity off the ones who suffer for the greater glory of eternal life?

2. Thou shall not kill. It is a commandment from God Almighty. Euthanasia is mercy killing. It is a mortal sin. Anyone who suggests to the one in pain and dying, that it is best to accept mercy killing, is tempting him to break this commandment, at the last lap of his earthly temporal life, and to lose his soul to eternity.

It is the ’serpent and the apple’ story – re-visited.

How then can anyone claim to have jurisdiction over religious beliefs such as these?

But what about non-Catholics? How can Catholics claim to have jurisdiction over non-religious beliefs such as a dignified death, and “I don’t want my family to suffer several hundred dollars worth of hospital stay and consultation fees a day while waiting for me to pass away”?

Anyway, isn’t it the case that I/we/doctor am going to hell for killing the patient, rather than the patient? (Were Catholics the most vocal critics against capital punishment?)

Legalizing euthanasia doesn’t mean that EVERYBODY must be euthanized. It can be ethical if there’s a release form stating the patient’s will that he or she wants to be euthanized at such and such stage. I’m really fine if Catholics want not to be euthanized and they have the right to, but I’m not Catholic, and I may want euthanasia in the future if ever I do end in an uncurable permanent vegetative state living on IV drips and a feeding tube — had the technology not been there, I’d be dead anyway.

10) Jian

You need not have to worry about the Catholic’s point of view.
Probably I should have included a bit of explanation before presenting my views.

What I have suggested is that no one has the right to impose his decision on another whether he should live or die. Catholicism is one of the reasons.

If a non-Catholic were to decide whether a dying Catholic ought to continue living in suffering or to die, then he would most likely decide without consideration toward the belief of the dying individual.

Likewise, if a Catholic doctor were to decide whether a suffering patient ought to continue to live or die, I am sure there is nothing to decide at all. His Catholic belief will not allow him to decide on death for the patient.

In other word, no law-binding bill that legalizes euthanasia can be accepted that compells another to decide whether a patient lives or dies because of factors such as religious beliefs.

Hope it is clearer now : )

I tend to agree with JIan. In so much as my religious beliefs frown upon euthanasia, I also believe in the important of separation of church and state. We will be opening a pandora’s box if policies were to be decided on the basis of religion… and that doesn’t work in multireligious singapore. Let’s not forget that insomuch as the majority’s views are to be respected, the state has the duty to protect the minorities as well.

13) Zefly

I think the decision to legalize euthanasia goes beyond the basis of whether there is majority or minority support for it. We are talking about effectively killing another, no matter how nicely we can describe it.

The reasons for pros and cons are aplenty and all are valid. What is the right thing to do then? Do we go with the pros or the cons?

My feel is, as long as there is no unanimuos agreement on this, euthanasia cannot be legalized in a compelling way. This is as good as impossible.

It can still be legalized, with choice, for the individual to decide for himself but it cannot be forced upon anyone, not the dying, not the doctors not the family.