One of the most challenging areas where medicine, ethics, morality, and social policy collide is that of end-of life decisions. A reader posed a question regarding sustaining life vs. terminating care in those who are not terminal per se, but no longer have intact cognitive function, e.g. severe dementia and persistent vegetative state: I was…
Category: Death & the Afterlife
Death and the afterlife viewed from a Christian perspective
Dancing With Death
The war rages on. It is a battle with ancient roots, deeply embedded in religion, culture, and the tensions between rich and poor. It is a war of contrasts: high technology and primitive cultural weapons; knowledge versus ignorance; speed and urgency against the methodical slowness of an enemy who knows time is on his side….
A Life Not Long
Recently, I’ve been ruminating on a subject which is a frequently heard online and elsewhere: the endless pursuit of a longer — or eternal — life. Here’s the question I’ve been pondering: is it an absolute good to be continually striving for a longer life span? Such a question may seem a bit odd coming…
Crossing That Dark River
Often in the sturm und drang of a world gone mad, there comes, through the chaos and insanity, some brief moment of clarity. Such times pass by quickly, and are quickly forgotten — as this brief instance might have been, courtesy of my neighboring bell weather state of Oregon: Last month her lung cancer, in…