What Do You Think?

This is Sofie. She is a doctor working in a city hospital in Holland. At the moment she has a patient who has terminal cancer. The cancer cannot be cured and the patient will probably die within the next two months.

The patient is 53 and the hospital staff are having problems trying to manage her pain. She and her family have quietly asked the doctor to 'do the kind thing ...' requesting that Sofie gives an injection to the patient that will hasten the patient's death. The patient says she is ready to die. She says the quality of her life is not good. She used to be a very independent person and hates the indignity of being bedridden and relying on others to wash and feed her. The patient says she cannot face a couple more months of this agony and would prefer to die peacefully now, with her family around her.

Sofie is a Christian and although she really feels for the patient, she heard a talk last week in church about how euthanasia was a sin and that we have no right to help anyone else end his or her life.