IN THEORY:

A recent study showed that the devout tend to get more aggressive end-of-life care than is medically warranted. Researchers found that terminally ill cancer patients were about three times more likely to be hooked up to breathing machines or given invasive treatments if they’re religious and their faith played a part in the decision-making. The treatments, though, did not improve the long-term chances and may have prolonged the suffering. What are your thoughts on this study and the relationship between faith and end-of-life care?

How much support, feedback and guidance about the teachings of their faith tradition did these patients receive? Were they well-educated on subjects such as suffering, fear, euthanasia, “a good death,” prayer, meditation and the range of ethical choices permitted by their faith traditions?

As an interfaith hospice chaplain, I was privileged to visit dying patients and to experience directly how often this could be a sacred time of extraordinary spiritual growth. Yet, for other patients, the lack of adult religious education combined with deep-rooted misconceptions about their own faith tradition sometimes led to unnecessary suffering, psychological as well as physical.

These medical studies confirm that professional spiritual care, pastoral care and chaplaincy are essential parts of health care and should be taken more seriously.

The Rev. Deborah Barrett

Zen Center of Orange County

Costa Mesa

We have an obligation to God to prolong our longevity free from pain and suffering. Although Judaism forbids suicide and euthanasia, it permits “passive” euthanasia in specific circumstances. Our increased ability to keep people’s bodies functioning through machines and medications makes it critical to determine when life support might be withheld or withdrawn.

On the other hand, a patient with an incurable illness may also choose to have machines and medications utilized and be placed in hospice care. Some patients might even choose a middle ground or third alternative — to have only palliative treatment administered to the terminally ill. Rabbis, doctors, and people, are not omnipotent or omnipresent, as God is, and therefore, there are no absolute right or wrong decisions. We should not be judgmental.

Withdrawing or withholding life support from terminally ill patients is justified by Jewish law if it does not prolong the process of dying. We can and definitely should administer to the needs of the dying through pain medication and through our presence and loving care of loved ones. We should be with them and there for them. Our duty to take care of the sick definitely extends to those situations when nothing else is possible, when all we can do medically is to relieve pain and suffering sometimes.

Rabbi Marc Rubenstein

Temple Isaiah

Newport Beach

There certainly seems to be no logical reason for why religious people get more extreme medical treatments at the end of life. The Bible supposedly teaches that heaven is a marvelous place where all properly religious people will be happy to spend their afterlife. Why would any incurably ill person want to drag out the pain and suffering when they could go to such an Eden? And why would their relatives and friends want them to endure continued and prolonged suffering? The “Death with Dignity” organization has a much better approach.

It seems that religions, particularly Christianity, promote the idea that misery and pain are good things for people to endure, as though it somehow made them better people or brought them closer to God.

Being healthy and happy, and helping others to be healthy and happy — for as long as possible — should be the basic goal. There is no benefit from prolonged pain or continued degeneration to the last minute, and the use of tubes, pumps, and other artificial paraphernalia just to slightly prolong the pretense of “life” is ridiculous.

Jerry Parks