Quotes: Death and Dying
"While the time of actual medical dying is very, very short, there is a prolonged time in the gray zone where you never know how far along you are. ... It's a label that comes too late."
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"Any definition of brain death is irrelevant to God ... He gives us death, a biological marker, which says to us, 'A transition takes place and you relate to me now in a different way.' "
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"Physician-assisted suicide is the right of personal autonomy taken to its extreme, but Oregon's law ... is not about pain; it's about control of your life."
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"Very few individuals are capable of making decisions. Most make them under pressure, scared, sick, out of money or afraid to be out of money. ... Living wills are a ghastly charade."
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"We are a country inspired and driven, for good and for evil, by the notion that individuals have a right to choose their fate if it doesn't hurt someone else."
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"To her husband, Terri Schiavo was defined by ... her ability to think, to love, to be in a relationship. ... But for her parents, if any part of Terri was there, they felt they were in her presence."
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"Why do people think they alone are the judges of quality of their life? ... We are left like atoms, bouncing against each other, not a robust community of human beings with a stake in one another's lives."
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"These are the arguments of an advanced, free society. There are no such discussions in Egypt or Iran. There's no general public debate over death and dying. That's for the elite."
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"We do not necessarily know now what we will want for ourselves someday if we are faced with a terrible illness or injury. ... We cannot ever really know what a family member wants for his or her life. We cannot impose upon another person our own idea of what constitutes death with dignity."
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"The law of karma says every embodied soul ... will reap the consequences of our actions. Injustices and suffering ... might only be explained by the past. Best to get it over with now."
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