EUTHANASIA AND ISLAMIC RULINGS PERTINENT TO MAINTAINING AND REMOVING ARTIFICIAL LIFE SUPPORT DEVICES

This paper is intended to elaborate on the legal ruling of removing life support from a brain-dead person. Brain death means the permanent absence of brainstem and cerebral functions, not only the death of the brain cortex. Life support devices restore the functions of the heart and respiratory system, which sometimes result in the full recovery of consciousness of the patient and all of his basic functions. It is possible for the patient to restore normal breathing and leave the hospital in a full healthy state. On this basis, it is not permissible for a doctor to remove these devices before the brainstem dies, otherwise this would cause a real and irreversible death of the patient. In this case, the doctor bears full civil and criminal responsibility. The doctor is held accountable if he refrains from providing assistance to this patient who is legally and medically alive. It is permissible to remove artificial life devices once the death of the brain is ascertained in the light of the above-mentioned diagnoses. Then, the patient will be transferred to another room, but his death is announced only after the heart stops functioning. It is from this moment that the rulings of death are applied. The responsibility of removing these devices and declaring death is the work of a specialized medical committee that approves the diagnosis and issues a burial permit.

Investigating the severity of the grief experience among people whose family members died of COVID-19

Background & Objectives: COVID-19 has made the grief process more complicated and brought about loads of unexpressed grief. This study aimed at determining the severity of grief reactions due to the death of a first-degree relative (FDR) affected by COVID-19. Methods: This analytic cross-sectional study was conducted to determine the grief score of people over 18 years old with the experience of losing one of their FDRs (i.e. father, mother, and siblings) because of COVID-19. Convenience sampling was employed to gather the data. The instrument used in this study was the Grief Experience Questionnaire (GEQ-34) that was filled in through phone calls. The inclusion criteria included the tendency to participate in the study, age of over 18, and the experience of FDR’s death. On the other hand, the exclusion criteria were severe discomfort and restlessness while talking on the phone. To analyze the data, descriptive statistics and multiple linear regression were employed to diagnose the factors affecting grief, using SPSS version 22 with a significance level of 0.05. Results: The findings indicated that the mean score of GEQ was 67.22±19.24, ranging from 34 to 126. In this study, 54.5% of the bereaved had an experience of low-level grief, 40.2% moderately experienced the grief, and 5.3% were highly affected. There was a positive relationship between the gender of the mourners, widows, or widowers with the grief score, while a negative relationship was observed between being an employed mourner as well as the age of the dead person with the grief score. Conclusion: COVID-19 pandemic has brought about quite a lot of changes in the social and economic situation; mourning condition has become a complicated challenge. To facilitate the grief process and prevent psychological problems, it is recommended that some changes take place in this process. For example, online memorials, and online meetings of mourning can replace the traditional ones. Television, mass media, and clergymen can play a great role in making these changes in funeral rituals.

A Theological Understanding of Ancestor Veneration in the Bapedi Society as an Expression of Transcendence and Anticipation of Comfort and Hope

In the Bapedi society, ancestor veneration is one area that requires scholarly attention. Historically, in the indigenous Bapedi religion there is far greater acceptance that ancestors are in existence, and ancestor veneration and culture are related. A significant dimension in the role played by the ancestors in the Bapedi culture is how they are believed to transmit and safeguard life. Therefore, an investigation of ancestor veneration as a source of comfort and hope, in the context of Bapedi people’s religious and cultural rituals is inevitable. The present study investigated the Bapedi conception of death, its meaning, the significance of the rituals performed during and after death, and how Bapedi people conceive and deal with ancestor veneration. To achieve this, the study employed direct observations, video recordings, and informal interviews. Three interrelated research questions, therefore, guided this study: 1) Do Bapedi people believe in the resurrection of the dead and eternal life for the individual after death?; 2) Does the continuing relationship of ancestors with their families have medical, financial, moral, biological, and social implications for the living?; and 3) Do Bapedi people believe in reincarnation of a dead individual in the form of another individual still living, and particularly in the powerful spirit or soul of a dead person which still has a potent functional role which affects the still living? Findings of this study have shown that ancestor veneration seems to offer Bapedi people an opportunity to express their faith and confidence in their ancestors. It has become evident from a thorough analysis of the data that music is a societal need and appears to be an expression of the most basic values and feelings of the Bapedi people. It was concluded that ancestors have unlimited powers over the lives of the living, and there are no restrictions to either the chastisement or the blessings that they can confer on their descendants.

Patrzenie jako źródło cierpień (z rzymskich dziejów pewnego motywu literackiego)

The paper examines a number of Roman literary texts (by Ennius, Cicero, Vergil, Ovid, Seneca the Younger, Lucan, Tacitus, Jerome, etc.) in which viewing is connected with mental or emotional suffering. Usually, the emphasis is laid on a character’s viewing of some dramatic events – a close relative’s death, for example – and on his or her emotional response to what is being seen. In some works, especially in consolatory contexts, someone’s premature death is presented as advantageous because the dead person is now spared the necessity of viewing misfortunes which the living have to witness. Also, people may be compelled (e.g. by an emperor) to watch evil things; in such a situation they are usually viewers and objects of viewing at the same time, since their gestures and facial expression are carefully observed.

Effectiveness of Planned Teaching on Knowledge Regarding Cadverdonation among Adults in Rural Area

Introduction: The donation of organs from a brain dead or dead person is known as Cadaver donation. Many adults are unaware of cadaver donation in the rural areas; hence the researcher had to impart awareness about cadaver donation among the adult population so that their attitude will gradually diversify in the future. Aims: The study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of planned teaching regarding cadaver donation among adult in the rural area and find out the association of knowledge score with selected demographic variables. Materials and Methods: In this Evaluatory approach was used. Pre-test and post test design was used. The study held among adults between the age group of 19years to 30years and the data was collected in the rural area of Seloo taluka at Wardha district from 2nd January to 28th January 2019. The researcher collected one sample from an individual family. Non- probability convenience sampling technique used in this study. The total sample size was 60 samples. Results: In the study, 50% of sample belonged to the age group of (19 t0 21 years) 51.6% of sample were males, 40% of samples were graduate 5% of the sample had knowledge about cadaver donation out of which 15% of samples had knowledge from newspaper and mass media. The mean post-test knowledge scores 13.53 were higher than mean pre-test knowledge score 4.15 and the obtained mean difference of 9.38 was found to be statistically significant. Conclusion: It is concluded that there was an evidence to increase the knowledge score after administration of the planned teaching. The actual gain score was significantly higher, improving in the knowledge regarding cadaver donation among adults in the rural area. Thus the planned teaching was effective.

Abkhazian Fairy Tales About a Wonderful Assistant

В статье рассматриваются сказки о чудесном помощнике. После того как герой хоронит мертвеца, дежурит у могилы отца, спасает рыбу, лосося, у него появляются чудесные помощники, которые в знак благодарности помогают ему жениться на царевне, спасают от гибели и т. д. В абхазских волшебных сказках данный сказочный сюжет встречается в нескольких вариантах. Также герой с помощью отрубленных голов змей узнает своего помощника, а благодаря платку и клейму о подвигах героя узнает и сам государь. В конце чудесные помощники (мертвец, рыба, лосось) предлагают герою «разделить» девушку, изо рта которой выходили змеи. Направляют свою шашку в ее сторону, и когда она кричит от испуга, из ее рта выходят части тел змей, и они убивают их, таким образом «очищая» девушку от змей, которые убивали всех ее женихов. Абхазы с давних времен и до настоящего времени после смерти человека совершают различные ритуалы, чтобы угодить покойнику, чтобы душа не тревожилась и обрела вечный покой. Следы некоторых ритуалов отражаются и в сюжетах абхазских волшебных сказках о чудесном помощнике. This article examines fairy tales involving wonderful assistants. After the hero buries a dead person, stands guard at his father’s grave, or saves a fish, miraculous helpers appear, who, help him marry a princess, save him from death, and so on, sometimes as a token of gratitude (e. g., for setting a fish free). In Abkhazian fairy tales, this plot appears in several versions. With the help of severed heads of snakes, the hero recognizes his helper, and thanks to a scarf and a mark the sovereign himself learns about the hero’s deeds. At the end, wonderful helpers (a dead person, a fish or specifically a salmon) propose that the hero “separate” a girl: they point their sabers in her direction, and when she screams in fright, snakes (or parts of them) come out of her mouth and they kill them. In this way they “cleanse” the girl from the snakes that had killed all of her suitors. After someone’s death, Abkhazians from ancient times to the present have performed various rituals in order to placate the deceased, so that the soul does not fret and can find eternal peace. Traces of some of these rituals are reflected in the plots of Abkhazian fairy tales about wonderful helpers.

Vaccine Protection Efficiency Compared with the Smart Application of Common-Sense Pandemic Control Measures

Most recent NIH studies and CDC publication were able to estimate the vaccine efficacy variation overtime, and to remove the previous vail of ultimate and absolute protection against SARS-CoV-2, known as COVID-19 with respect to delta variant, propagated in the USA. The statistical data shows clear that Vaccines as Pfizer ad Moderna works, in spite their efficacies are decreasing with about 5%/month, are still able to protect in a more complex manner than masks and nano-engineered aerodynamics based protection measures. If these measures are referring to preventing inhalation of any hazardous material, no matter the type of viruses, the vaccine is dealing with the effects of virus inside the body after the intake took place. These vaccines were considered an ultimate protection and praised as such, as being in fact big pharma business, easy to be understood by masses with a real nature hazard mitigation IQ level much lower than the one made at national level based on the actual IQ tests customized to keep happy Caucasians, but fit well on Pacific Rim Asians. The problem with engineered protection is that one needs a smart population, cooperating synergistically, and be knowledgeable on when and how to use the protection in order to stop pandemic, insulate aggressor virus, create a vaccine and terminate the hazard. The current US practice is dominated by high-level mis-information and politicization of pandemic, where the actual spike in delta variant is due to CDC suppression of masks, without reaching a heard immunity, praising and enforcing vaccination aggravated by the incompetence of conservatives, who do not understand that a sick or dead person cannot enjoy constitutional freedoms, and do not distinguish between a life threat and a right, simply opposing to government without coming with alternate measures, having a disastrous effect on US population which with only 4% of world’s population delivered more than 25% of world’s causalities. The current milestone of 610,000 deaths and 40 million infected made the world leery about US exceptionalism and its planetary leadership.

The Literary Response to the Holocaust and the Transformation of the Reader into a Messenger

“The greatest mitzvah,” Lily Lerner remembers what her mother taught her, “is to accompany a dead person to burial” (Lerner 1980, p. 35) [...]

What Teeth Can Tell Us

Teeth are the hardest substance of the body and the gatekeeper of the digestive tract. They can survive extreme environmental conditions and they are the last part of the body that is decomposed after death. With these unique features, teeth are often the only remaining body part of a deceased person in a criminal case. Teeth can help investigators to find out who a dead person is, how old the person was, if the person was male or female, what kind of daily habits and lifestyle a person had and how the person died. Thus, the examination of teeth plays a key role in crime scene investigations and can help solve crimes.