title


DIRECTORY
Home
General LDS Information
Basic LDS Beliefs
LDS Videos
Critics' Questions
Submitted Questions
Scriptures/LDS Literature
Genealogy/Family
LDS Temples
Missionary
Music and Arts
LDS Online Stores
Priesthood, Humor, Miscel.
Site Map

Suggest a Site
Now accepting banner ads!

Bookmark and Share



JONJ - What is the stance on euthanasia. If a person is constantly in pain, depression, and was told to complex to fix. They are pumping in pain meds to keep alive, would it be a sin to have euthanasia for relief? I know that if someone is on life support and the family had to make a decision that is a different case. But I wonder how it would be if the person themselves would make that decision because the family could not.

JOEL - As far as the church stance on this subject is concerned it would be considered a sin. A person who participates in euthanasia—the deliberate, intentional putting to death of a person suffering from incurable conditions or diseases—violates the commandments of God(Church Handbook of Instructions).
There is a difference between allowing a terminally ill person to die of natural causes(eg. discontinuing a life-support system) and the initiating of action that causes someone's death (such as a lethal injection).
The application or denial of life-support systems must be decided reverently, usually by competent and responsible family members through prayer and the consultation of competent medical authorities. It is not wrong to ask the Lord, if it be his will, to shorten the physical suffering of a person whose afflictions are terminal and irreversible by discontinuing a life-support system.

Return to top
Return to Questions
HOME