One of the things that has set America apart from some other nations is that life has always been considered sacred and that all measures should be taken to preserve life. In many communist and socialist nations, life is not sacred and looked on as something that can be sacrificed, especially for the gain of the ruling elite.

However, since the formation of America, life was sacred until the 1970s when liberals began to change American culture. They started with legalizing abortion, the intentional first-degree murder of unborn children. They justified it by denying that unborn children are real human beings and nothing more than a lump of tissue that can be discarded in the same way one would have their tonsils or a tumor removed. Since abortions were legalized, 60,302,710 unborn children have been brutally murdered before ever being given the opportunity of life outside the womb. This is nearly 10 times the number of Jews that Nazi Germany murdered during the Holocaust.

Then there was the push to legalize suicide, often by means of doctor assisted suicide. Many people believe this, like abortion, is crossing an ethical line that should never be crossed but crossed it has. Today, California, Colorado, Oregon, Vermont and Washington have legalized doctor assisted suicide. In Montana, doctor assisted suicide is legal only with the approval of a judge. Fortunately, 37 states have laws against any form of assisted suicide, 3 states prohibit assisted suicide by common law and 4 states have no specific laws regarding assisted suicide.

Many argue that people who are terminally ill or in constant severe pain should be allowed to end their suffering by some form of assisted suicide, however, the majority of Americans still hold that life is sacred and that any form of suicide is ethically wrong.

This is why a group in liberally run New York is pushing a new directive that would allow people to sign a statement saying that if they develop severe dementia, they don’t want food or water, so as to end their lives sooner without going through the rest of the dementia process.

The group is known as End Of Life Choices New York. Their website only lists a phone number or email address but provides no other information about the organization.

According to Kaiser Health News:

“The document offers two options: one that requests ‘comfort feeding’ — providing oral food and water if a patient appears to enjoy or allows it during the final stages of the disease — and one that would halt all assisted eating and drinking, even if a patient seems willing to accept it.”

Some doctors support the directive, including Dr. Timothy Quill, a palliative care expert at the University of Rochester School of Medicine, who commented on the directive, saying:

“Developing incapacitating dementia is certainly my and a lot of people’s worst nightmare. This is an aggressive document. It’s a way of addressing a real problem, which is the prospect of advanced dementia.”

However, others oppose the directive, including Richard Doerflinger, an associate scholar with the Charlotte Lozier Institute, who commented:

“I think oral feeding is basic care. It’s what they want here and now that matters. If they start taking food, you give them food.”

Is this kind of directive any different than forms of assisted suicide or is it similar to a ‘DNR – do not resuscitate’ order that many people have? The arguments for both sides are strong and border on ethics, of the person, their family and our nation.