ON THE FORUMS

 View Forums

 FREE Membership

 FREE Newsletters

OUR SPONSORS

Please support our sponsors

CATHOLIC QUOTES

 Encyclopedia RSS

 Catholic Encyclopedia

SPECIAL OFFERS

S  i  d  e  b  a  r

Common Myths

By Fr. Frank Pavone

This Rock Volume 16, Number 8   October 2005     Frontispiece By Karl Keating   Letters   What About the Right to Die? By Fr. Frank Pavone   Common Myths By Fr. Frank Pavone   The Role of Deacons: Then and Now By Tim Drake   What Can and Can't Deacons Do? By Tim Drake   The Restoration of the Permanent Diaconate at the Second Vatican Council By Tim Drake   Who Were the "Great" Popes – and Why? By Fr. William Saunders   What's in a Name? By Carl E. Olson   Soteriology: Catholic v. Protestant By Carl E. Olson   Mary, the Ark of the New Covenant By Steve Ray   Mary the Ark As Revealed in Mary's Visit to Elizabeth By Steve Ray   Inside the Ark By Steve Ray   Step by Step Google versus the Pope By Kenneth J. Howell   Fathers Know Best The Real Presence   Brass Tacks The Complex Relationship between Scripture and Tradition By Jimmy Akin   Damascus Road Reincarnation Meant My Loved Ones Would Cease to Exist By Joanna Bogle   Classic Apologetics The Authenticity of the Gospels By Walter Devivier, S. J.   Quick Questions    Subscribe    Permissions

It is a myth that most terminally ill people seek suicide.
"According to available data, only a small percentage of terminally ill or severely ill patients attempt or commit suicide" (9).

It is a myth that single events cause people to end their lives.
"Contrary to popular opinion, suicide is not usually a reaction to an acute problem or crisis in one’s life or even to a terminal illness. . . . Instead, certain personal characteristics are associated with a higher risk of . . . suicide" (11).

It is a myth that requests for suicide represent a person’s true desires.
"Like other suicidal individuals, patients who desire suicide or an early death during a terminal illness are usually suffering from a treatable mental illness, most commonly depression" (13).

It is a myth that terminal illness has to involve unmanageable pain.
"Taken together, modern pain relief techniques can alleviate pain in all but extremely rare cases" (40).

Quotes from When Death Is Sought: Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in the Medical Context, a May 1994 study by the New York State Task Force on Life and Law.