Ministries: A Relational Approach Book

Euthanasia and Physician Assisted Suicide by: Michael Manning tries to determine if euthanizing or assisting someone in suicide, medically, is considered a killing or caring action. Manning starts by introducing the different types of assisted suicide, and then digs into the history and finally his personal opinion. This book helped me understand how complex the issue of assisted suicide and euthanasia really are. I liked this book because it was fairly short compared to other medically related books, but I did not like how since Manning is a catholic priest, he had strong opinions at the end of his book. Consistent references to euthanasia and assisted suicide during WWII attempted to determine if such acts were used to help or harm victims of the era. It was interesting to see how today's reasoning for euthanasia and assisted suicide are still similar, but yet vastly different. Both the old and the new era are all for having family members take their loved ones of life support, but the new era thinks that assisted suicide should also be an option for people living with a daunting and seriously bothersome disease.
I disagreed with Manning at the end of the book when he talked about how assisted suicide should not be legal because I think that each person has a right to live the life they choose to live. Yes, obviously there should be health screenings and possible therapy for the people who want to end their lives with medical help, but the act of a nurse or doctor assisting in someone's want to die should be legal. However, I do agree with Manning about how better healthcare should be put in place to prevent people with deadly diseases from wanting to kill themselves though.
I will use the information from the beginning of Manning's book to help me explain the different types of assisted suicide and euthanasia there are, but I probably won't use much of the part where he tries to explain the history aspect since it appeared contradictory in itself. Basically it was hard for me to follow!