A progressive voice in Hawai'i promoting the positive healing role of religion in public life by encouraging dialogue, challenging extremism, and facilitating nonviolent community activism
TIAH and Religious Leaders for Assisted Dying
The Interfaith Alliance Hawai'i and Religious
Leaders for Assisted Dying state that we respect the right of
competent adults to make their own decisions concerning end of
life choices according to their own beliefs and values.
So there are no misunderstandings, we do not support the
indiscriminate taking of one’s own life, but rather acknowledge
that in certain carefully defined circumstances, it would be
humane to recognize that death is certain and suffering is
great. We believe that, by whatever name we call our
Supreme Being, we have been granted the responsibility of
individual choice over our lives. Just as we should be
free to worship according to our individual understanding of
faith, we should have the freedom in making our own end-of-life
choices.
Those who oppose assisted dying based on their own moral,
ethical, or religious beliefs simply need not participate.
We do not believe it is up to any religious leader to dictate
how this final and perhaps most intimate decision between a
dying person and his or her God should be made. Instead,
we must support and accept such decisions, even if they do not
represent the course that we ourselves might have chosen.