On what circumstances it is okay to kill?

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On what circumstances it is okay to kill?

By: Risa Santoso

There had been a lot of killing that happened in wars, conflicts and perhaps driven-by-emotion incidents also. However is it really okay to kill someone? What about methods like euthanasia? Is there actually a time when killing is considered acceptable?

Most people considered killing as an absolute sin. The bible for example, set standards such as the Ten Commandments for us to follow; “Thou shall not murder”. There are though, circumstances in which killing is inevitable. Say if we are in the situation where our love ones are threatened to death and there’s no other way to stop that if not killing the murderous criminal. Or, for example, when the matter is for self defense where our own selves are the one who is threatened. By the law of the United States, self-defense murders will not be taken as a real murder. If a person is proven to act on self-defense, there will be no charge or punishment taken.

WARS & BOMBARDMENT

Some people define killing in wars, for soldiers, as something inevitable and not wrong since they are not able to make a choice otherwise to survive. They justified killing as self-defense and as a morally responsible attacker because of they are counted as having an imminent threat and have no other option to avoid that threat.

Even though it is not wrong to kill someone on wars, soldiers, civilians and decisions makers are bound to have physiological trauma because of it.

“Unfortunately, they are failing to prepare them morally, and in doing so they are failing in their duty to care for their soldiers’ welfare.  They leave their soldiers unprepared to deal with their post-combat consciences and unprepared to make morally right decisions about whom to kill in morally ambiguous circumstances.”

From the quote that I got form a website, I was able to tell that the soldier was feeling traumatized because of the war that they have been through.

They, who have witnessed, feel and experienced terrifying acts (not just in wars) will have difficulties on forgetting the incident since it sticks to their head. Some people even developed PTSD (Posttraumatic Stress Disorder), ranging from a mediocre level to the extreme.

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The picture below shows the statics that I have found from http://oas.samhsa.gov/2k7/veteransDual/ veteransDual.htm about the Serious Psychological Distress (SPD), Substance Use Disorder (SUD), and Co-Occurring SPD and SUD in the Past Year among Veterans, by Age: 2004 to 2006. From 2004 to 2006 indicate that an annual average of 7.0 percent of veterans aged 18 or older (an estimated 1.8 million persons annually) experienced SPD in the past year in the United Sates alone.

Based on the results mentioned above, I believe that physical wars are not to be done. They caused physiological disorders to almost everyone involved. ...

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