Albert Mohler: Sign Your Way to a "Good Death?"
-- The Soft Slide to Euthanasia
Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Charlotte Allen doesn't want to sign a roadmap that could lead to euthanasia. That's why she refused to sign what is now commonly known as a "living will" when she was diagnosed last year with breast cancer. Writing in Sunday's edition of The Washington Post, Allen recounted her experience overcoming "efforts to persuade me to sign onto the currently fashionable notion of a 'good death.'"

During her hospitalization, Allen was frequently asked to sign a living will. The suggestions came with the implication that such a step was the responsible thing to do -- just accepting one's own responsibility to tidy things up at the end of life. Eventually, she came to feel "ever-so-slightly harassed."

In reality, living wills are a central fact of life and death in medical centers, nursing homes, hospices, and hospitals. Groups such as the American Bar Association and the American Medical Association push living wills and advanced directives as a way of limiting some care at the end of life. In other words, the whole point of a living will is to allow medical personnel not to resuscitate or to deny "artificial" food, water, and breathing assistance. the rest