Euthanasia - الموت الرحيم

Yesterday I lectured on the euthanasia subject to a group of young people (19-22 yrs) who form the musical band of the Church of the Cross (كشاف الصليب). The topic although controversial, thus very interesting, was requested by them (and the offer to me through one of them who I know). I intended the whole thing to be interactive to check on personal experience, previous interpretation of the subject and so forth.
So I presented cases to define whether they were euthanasia (aka mercy killing) or not. To my delight the group was very interactive and opinionated.
My personal take on the subject is that I am not totally in favor of it. Not for religious purposes, nor legal, nor social, but based on personal convictions. And the reason I am saying not totally is that when faced with the situation things may change as far as decision making, especially when sympathizing (as opposed to empathizing) starts to take its effect.

For the purpose of the lecture I bought the movie "The Sea Inside", a 2005 winner of best foreign movie Oscar, in addition to many international awards. The movie is about a quadriplegic for 28 year after a neck fracture event, who wants to terminate his life. He considered his life without dignity and wanted to do that through legal channels.
The movie is set in Spain where euthanasia is not legal. Eventually it is done through the help of a friend. The movie is very powerful and interesting. It is the kind of movie that may make you change your mind regarding certain things, and is a must see for everyone. And once again it just proves that European movies are better than US.

In comparison to that, the last year winner of Academy Awards (Million Dollar Baby), interestingly approaches a similar subject but not as complex, and in my opinion, contrary to the common belief, does not represent euthanasia but represent a person's right to withdraw life sustaining treatment.





It is of note though that both movies were done outside the medical setting were this would usually happen. It gives an idea that such things happen in the public unaccounted for usually and unnoticed.
As a consequence to this, it is possible I will talk about the same subject in two different events in the future.