Reflection Blog 10

I thought that reading chapter 16 was a little bit of a downer. Death is a topic that most people don’t just want to talk about, because it can be hard to understand for some, and very stressful to think about. Reading about the different traditions different religions participate in was interesting. I never knew that when someone who is Jewish dies, they cover mirrors. I have been to ceremonies where dirt is thrown on the grave though. Death is a hard topic to talk about. When you hear of a loved one passing away, it is hard to find the right words to say to console someone, and maybe there really aren’t words. Death is easier to accept when the person is older, or they have a terminal illness. The person who is expecting to die has had the time to make amends with family members and accept what is coming and sometimes they have made some of the plans after their death. A death that is not expected is the hardest for families to cope with, because it is unexpected.

The book also talks about euthanasia. Euthanasia can be active or passive. Active meaning the person with the terminal illness takes a lethal dose of medication, passive meaning life support or life extending medication is withheld. This can be taking someone off life support, taking out a feeding tube, or discontinuing therapeutic drug use (chemotherapy).  Ethically, not everyone agrees with euthanasia and I can understand why. There is a bar graph in the book that shows how many lethal doses were prescribed vs how many people died taking the lethal doses. Rates of how many prescriptions were given has been on the rise since 2006, with 2010 having the highest number of lethal prescriptions given. I know that there are a lot of things people have to do to be able to get the medication, but I think that the number of people not taking the medication is too high, if the medication is going to be given to them, they should be 100% sure this is what they want to do , and maybe people wanting to receive the lethal dose of medication should have to wait a little longer, so they are more sure in their decision.