Editor's note

Journal of Biblical Ethics in Medicine – Volume 7, Number 2 Editor's Note
Like termites in an oak stump, articles on euthanasia Quite honestly, he did consider that he might be a continue to reduce to dry powder the humbled pagan. One wonders more about his minister-friend. He remnants of biblical precepts in medicine. The April, has "witnessed" to Dr. Walker, all right. All of our 1993, issue of MD magazine published a short story by actions constitute our "witness" and our last actions Daly Walker, a general surgeon in Columbus, Indiana, have special weight. They are a kind of summative in which he tells how he injected IV morphine into his witness of our life. Dr. Walker took it in and took it to friend suffering from terminal cancer. These renditions heart. He used his friend's "witness" in his decision- are a developing genre in medical literature. The story making. One features is, ". if it is wrong . why has must be told with skilful sensitivity, since our culture [he] asked me to do it?" What? Do ministers never make wrong decisions? Another "witness" that stuck substance. Dr. Walker is a sensitive writer, though he is with Dr. Walker is his friend's wresting of Philippians selective as to what he will be sensitive. It is not the law 1:22 so that Scripture is misused to suggest euthanasia of the Lord. Another necessity in the formula for telling tales of euthanasia-while-it-is-still-illegal is that theauthor be coy about his actions. Did he really intend to The solid oak of biblical precepts that once sheltered kill his friend? What was the dose of the morphine. Was and nurtured our nation lies rotting on the ground.
he merely giving a dose sufficient to relieve pain and Termites infest the stump. What should a Christian accepting the small risk that death would result, or was physician's response be to articles that gnaw at the the dose one that was expected to be lethal? Dr.
pitiful remnant? Do we boycott such physicians and the Walker doesn't tell us. He is more than usually vague.
companies that pay for such publication? The article He doesn't even tell us that his patient died. When appeared close to ads for Cardizem by Marion Merrell euthanasia falls into the hands of the crass, we can Dow, for Prilosec by Merck, and Advil by Whitehall expect such artful reluctance to disappear. It will Laboratories. Surely, these companies would maintain probably even be lamented by the sensitive ones.
that their advertisements are divorced from editorial Euthanasia without sufficient premonitory agonizing is policy -- that they cannot control magazine content. Just bad form, and bad form is as close to mortal sin as as surely, editorial policy would change if ads were many humanists can get. Weighty matters such as killing withdrawn and the reasons cited to the publisher. Do a friend in the name of mercy must be done with feeling we lobby for laws against euthanasia? The storycontains evidence that the doctor was restrained at least Dr. Walker's friend was reported to be a Presbyterian for a time by legal considerations. Perhaps if they were minister. He'd been in Selma, Alabama, with Martin enforced he would have desisted. It was only months Luther King, Jr., prized a piece of correspondence with ago that a similar tale provoked threat of legal action.
Paul Tillich, and cherished his 'God Loves You' sermon Do we offer alternatives? The dying minister was already in hospice care. Once hospices become consequences. His wife doesn't "know" what happens identified with euthanasia and "assisted suicide" their to people after they die. His friend apparently loved witness will be as clouded as was that of Dr. Walker's "witnessing." He asks Dr. Walker to kill him. His wife patient. Hospices that don't will be a different from agrees to the request. Dr. Walker at first refused.
those that do as crisis pregnancy centers are from Thoughts of loss of licensure or jail restrained him for a while as did the Hippocratic oath he says he once took.
Journal of Biblical Ethics in Medicine – Volume 7, Number 2 All these responses may be considered, but they aren'tlikely to set the matter straight. None of them alone willstimulate that stump to sprout a new tree. We must getat the wrong ideas, the wrong beliefs, that support suchbehavior. They must be challenged. We need to beginwith ourselves before we turn to pagans. Do we have atheology of death and dying, a real one, not Bibleverses poured over Kubler-Ross? Do we consider howto be as convincing to persons such as Dr. Walker asthose who convinced him have been thus far? Do wecare enough about physicians such as him to challengehim? Are we captured by the same dead elements inour culture that glorify tender sensitivities above biblicalrevelation?

Source: http://www.bmei.org/jbem/volume7/num2/editors_note.pdf