Alan McDougall
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End stage Alzheimer's disease and the morality of positive euthanasia Hello All,
I have long thought about exactly where the soul/mind of an Alzheimer sufferer exist in the End Stage where the person has become so incapacitated that they are zombie like and comatose.
Playing Devils Advocate I put a few points for discussion as follows”
Could the degradation of the mind due to end stage Alzheimer’s disease suggest that the mind and, resultantly, the human consciousness could be transient things.
Does this prove that most preconceived notions of an afterlife are fundamentally flawed? ?
Must we be able to perceive, evaluate and understand the afterlife for in to become a reality in the afterlife? E.g. or heaven or hell are creations of the mind which appears dead in the end stage Alzheimer sufferer
Mind might not survive without a functioning human body. Does the eternal soul live on? If the consciousness dies then the thing that makes you an individual, self-aware human might cease at that moment also?
As the disease progresses the Alzheimer's victim goes through anger, rage, violence, depression, regressing to childhood, forgetting current life - almost living in a 'past life' state. in random stages of this disease.?..
The final stage of the Alzheimer sufferer is unspeakably difficult for the family who must look after and nurse the person they loved so much but who is now just a blank eyed robot that somehow retains the ability to eat and drink. . I have seen the terrible devastation of this disease where the person is apparently absent from the body and the body lives on as a mindless biological entity.
But the body was the vehicle of the soul of a loved one, is this person trapped in the horror of dark void, or has the mind or soul ceased to exist.?
Does the person trapped inside a dark Alzheimer body suffer unspeakably and if we could really establish this, would not positive euthanasia be an option?.
If God, forbid, I ever got into this state I would welcome someone giving me a huge dose of morphine and releasing me into my destiny
What do you think about this vexing problem?
The difficult question is can positive euthanasia ever be justified?
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