Debate Against PAS

Christians live in a world knowing that although the advantages that science and technology provide enrich out lives immensely in so many different ways, they will never exempt us from our own personal encounter with the mystery of death. to cure and care but never to kill their patients. By living among us, Jesus created a new communion or solidarity among us (1 Corinthians 12:26-27), making everyone a neighbor worthy of our charity and care (Luke 10:25-36). Kass, a ethicist, physician and biochemist at the University of Chicago, PAS would ruin the doctor-patient relationship. ” The Hippocratic Oath clearly rules out PAS. As Christians, our faith shapes our attitude towards sickness and death in three important ways. In heeding God’s command, “Thou shall not kill,” we recognize that we cannot dispose of life as we please. Third, we believe that we are redeemed by Christ and called to share eternal life with him. For over 2 thousand years the medical ethic, mindful that power to cure is also power to kill, has held as a rule, “Doctor’s must not kill. ” The patients trust in the doctor’s devotion to the patients best interests will be hard to sustain once the doctor can legally prescribe death. Even conscientious physicians will have trouble caring wholeheartedly for patients once death becomes a “therapeutic option. Second, we believe that the Son of God became man to reconcile us with the Father and to be our model of holiness (Matthew 11:29). ” The prohibition against killing patients, medicines first principle of ethical self- restraint recognizes that no physician devotes to the benefit of the sick can serve the patient by making him dead.