The support for life support

Once life support is installed and connected to a patient, then,

according to many Muslim scholars, it would be unlawful to disconnect

it and cause the death of the patient. However, it is not mandatory

to connect the patient to the life support machine in the first

place.

IMAM MOSTAFA AL-QAZWINI

Islamic Educational Center

of Orange County

Christians consider the primary and greatest “life support” to be

God’s love expressed through concern and care of family and friends

with mutuality from the person whose life may be threatened. Second,

we understand that medical science works wonderfully through doctors’

and nurses’ expertise and resources for the resolution of a person’s

life possibilities, ever mindful of the person’s prospects for

quality as well as length of life in body, mind and soul. Third,

recognizing the inequality of health care across social and economic

lines nationally, Christians look at “life support” as an issue of

ethics and justice in our democratic society.

Taking a person off “life support” is a most serious decision. It

is always to be made in conversation with God through prayer that --

as always -- God’s will be done. The best medical advice and counsel

and thorough appreciation of a person’s life in relationships among

family and friends must inform any such decision. The questioning

words “ever OK” should motivate individuals to respond hopefully and

lovingly filled with the affirmation that life is God’s eternal gift.

THE VERY REV. CANON

PETER D. HAYNES

St. Michael and All Angels

Episcopal Church

Corona del Mar

Judaism is countercultural. Amid an ethos that speaks of “quality

of life” issues, Judaism exalts the “sanctity of life.” Man is

created in the Divine image, and the preservation of life is a Divine

commandment.

Further, since the value of human life is infinite, any part of

it, even a minute or a second, is of precisely the same worth as 70

years. Even residual life is of inestimable value. Human life is not

a relative but an absolute good.

And, yet, Judaism does not favor the prolonging of dying when one

is in the final stages of life. When death is imminent, Judaism

acknowledges that preserving life at all costs is no longer required.

People have to die, and death is not considered an enemy but a

transition, not a defeat but a means of entering into a new life. We

are custodians of life, not masters over life. If efforts cannot

bring about healing, certain artificial impediments to death may be

withdrawn.

Of course, a physician is not allowed to engage in euthanasia. A

medical education gives the doctor greater knowledge, not greater

moral rights. We ought not glorify murder in the name of kindness.

Woe to a society when physicians become technicians of death. There

is only one Angel of Death, and he does not have a medical degree.

Human life is sacred. It need not be unduly lengthened through our

skill, but it can never be ended by our will. We acknowledge with

humility and awe the observation of Solomon the Wise, that “there is

a time to be born and a time to die.” That time is up to God.

RABBI MARK MILLER

Temple Bat Yahm

Newport Beach