Are Near-Death Episodes Evidence of the Afterlife?
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Repudiating Catholic principles, thirteen American states and the District of Columbia now permit persons with a life expectancy of no more than six months to end their lives by taking prescribed drugs. These persons must be eighteen or older and mentally capable of making a life-ending decision. Many other countries also allow terminal patients to choose an early death.
Supporters of laws permitting terminal patients to kill themselves often use a catch-all term, medical aid in dying (MAiD), to refer to the statutes. That is a euphemism for physician-assisted suicide (PAS). In 1997, Oregon enacted the first American PAS law. Twelve years later, Montana and Washington State also became PAS states.
The decision to cease using the word suicide in descriptions of proposed or existing laws apparently elevated public perception of medically hastened death to acceptable status, thereby enabling its approval in legislatures. Expect jurisdictions in other states and countries to attempt to legalize MAiD in coming months and years.
MAiD advocates say their purpose is to end the suffering of terminal patients. But they achieve their goal by giving the patients lethal doses of drugs. After the patients ingest them, they die within minutes or hours.
The Roman Catholic Church prohibits MAiD and similar life-ending methods. However, the church does support efforts to relieve the suffering of terminal patients—even if such efforts cause premature death. The key difference here is that these efforts are intended to ease pain, not cause death. MAiD, on the other hand, is intended to cause death.
The church also allows patients to forego “extraordinary measures” that are not likely to prolong life. Examples of these measures are complicated surgery and attachment to ventilators that pump oxygen into the lungs. Catholics in doubt about a decision can seek help from a parish priest.
MAiD also violates the ancient Oath of Hippocrates, for centuries the standard for medical ethics. A key passage in the oath—as translated by Michael North for the National Library of Medicine (PubMed)—says, in part: “I will do no harm or injustice to [my patients]. I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked nor will I advise such a plan.”
An important consideration for patients, their families, and their friends is that the prognosis of physicians sometimes errs in how long a patient can survive. According to PubMed, doctors underestimate or overestimate the predicted date of death in seventeen percent of terminal cases. The ones who survive beyond the predicted date usually live days, weeks, or a few months after the predicted date. However, according to the London Daily Telegraph, there have been many cases in the UK in which “terminal” patients live for years after the predicted date.1
Another consideration is that terminal patients who view themselves as burdens, financial and otherwise, might ask for drugs that will end their lives.
A third consideration is that terminal patients with a mental debility—such as Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, and schizophrenia—sometimes mysteriously regain normal mental functions for a short time. According to the Archives of Geriatrics and Gerontology, “This return of mental clarity often occurs in the last minutes, hours, or days before the patient’s death.”2
The Cleveland Clinic has observed:
It is important for caregivers to be aware of this possibility, as it can provide a final, meaningful opportunity for connection, but it is typically a sign that the end of life is imminent. . . . Take advantage of the opportunity to speak words of comfort to your loved one. And be patient with yourself as you process the emotional impact that witnessing terminal lucidity in someone you love can take.3
Catholicism opposes intentional life-ending methods on moral grounds. Here are examples of reasons encapsulating Catholic teaching.
Sources
1. Eastham, Janet. “Assisted dying.” The Telegraph, 21 Jan. 2025 <https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/01/21/assisted-dying-row-terminally-ill-patients-live-longer/>.
2. Nahm, Michael, et al. “Terminal lucidity: A review and a case collection.” Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics, vol. 55, no. 1, July-Aug. 2012
<https://med.virginia.edu/perceptual-studies/wp-content/uploads/sites/360/2016/12/OTH25terminal-lucidity-AGG.pdf>.
3. “Terminal Lucidity.” The Cleveland Clinic. <https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/symptoms/terminal-lucidity>. Last updated 19 Nov. 2024.
Before retiring, Michael J. Cummings was a public-school English teacher, a journalist for 17 years, an adjunct instructor of English for 19 years at the Pennsylvania College of Technology, a freelance writer, and the author of more than thirty e-books and five print books. He was born in 1941 in Williamsport, Pa.
