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Christian MD: Schiavo Case Should Prompt Believers to Plan Ahead

by Mary Rettig
March 24, 2005
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(AgapePress) - The associate executive director of the Christian Medical Association says the Terri Schiavo controversy should spur individuals toward filling out an advance directive. He says such directives can help clarify a person's wishes and aid the decision-making process in the event of his or her incapacitation due to illness or injury.

An advance directive is an all-encompassing set of documents including what is known as a "living will," which specifically outlines medical care for emergency and terminal situations. And according to the CMA's Dr. Gene Rudd, one may hope those situations never happen -- but the time to decide what is to be done if such medical crises do occur is long before they happen. That is why he believes filling out an advance directive should be done as prayerfully and as thoroughly as possible -- and sooner rather than later, under calm circumstances instead of under the duress of an emergency.

According to Dr. Rudd, giving that kind of forethought to these critical, hypothetical decisions is important for two main reasons. First, he says, it demonstrates good stewardship of the body God has given to a person; and second, it can help provide peace of mind for family members.

"One of the greatest gifts you can give to your family," the CMA spokesman says, "is [for your family members] to not have to deal with this dilemma if you were to find yourself to be caught in a coma or some other situation like that."

If an advance directive were already in place, Rudd points out, the incapacitated person's wishes would be known and well documented, and someone would have been designated to help to make difficult medical decisions under the specified critical circumstances. "What a great blessing it would be for a family to have that, rather than to have to go through the dilemma the Schiavo's have had," he says.

The CMA physician says Christians should fight for life, but not necessarily at all costs. It is important for believers to respect and honor life, he asserts, and they should never intentionally hasten death. "But that doesn't mean we have to try to do everything to get another hour or another day," the doctor adds. "When the dying process is inevitable -- when there's no cure, no hope for cure -- we don't have to try to ask for futile care or things that are not going to be helpful. What we should be asking for then is comfort care, respect, dignity."

Dr. Rudd says filling out an advance directive to lay out one's wishes is exercising wisdom, compassion, and good stewardship. Since Christians have an eternal perspective and hope, he adds, they need not desperately hang on to every second of a life that is ending naturally, because to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.


Mary Rettig, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.

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