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The Official Catholic Viewpoint according to Rome: January 25, 2008

ZE08012304 - 2008-01-23
Permalink: http://www.zenit.org/article-21581?l=english

Cardinal Pell on Being in Awe of Life

Address Upon Receiving the "Mysterium Vitae" Grand Prix Award

COMMENTARY (from an American News Website)  
By Arthur Caplan, Ph.D.
MSNBC contributor
Updated: 10:19 a.m. ET June 1, 2007

Arthur Caplan, Ph.D.

The last time I saw Jack Kevorkian was April 23, 1994, in a courtroom in Pontiac, Mich.

Oakland County prosecutors had charged him in the death of 54-year-old Janet Adkins of Portland, Ore. The charges were assisting in a suicide, murder and delivering a controlled substance for administering drugs without a license. I was there to testify that what he had done to Adkins — providing her with his "suicide machine," which she used in the back of his 1968 VW van parked in a dark campsite to end her life — was both immoral and a gross violation of medical ethics.

Kevorkian, who became known in the press as "Dr. Death," was found not guilty. A few years later he was asked by Thomas Youk, a 52-year-old who had trouble breathing and swallowing due to advancing Lou Gehrig's disease, for help in dying. Kevorkian injected him with a lethal dose of potassium chloride while videotaping the ghastly proceedings. He sent the tape to "60 Minutes," which aired it. This gave prosecutors incontrovertible evidence that Jack had gone from assisting in suicides to personally killing people. He was sentenced to 10 to 25 years for murder. After serving just over eight years, Jack is back.

I believed Kevorkian was a very dangerous killer then, and I still believe it now. He helped dozens of depressed and disabled people die without trying very hard to convince them to live.

That day in the Pontiac courtroom, he stared and scowled as I said that it was unethical for a doctor to help kill someone they barely knew, who was not terminally ill and who was still enjoying a good quality of life. Adkins had been told she had Alzheimer’s but it was not clear how many months or years of quality life she had left when she used Jack’s jury-rigged death machine to infuse a lethal dose of drugs into her bloodstream.

All this matters because now that Kevorkian is out of jail, he has said he plans to reinsert himself as a vocal participant in the ongoing debate in America over assisted suicide.

No doubt he will get an audience. There are plenty of Americans who still, incredibly, view him as a hero. And the media loves him, too, knowing the audience-grabbing power of an unrepentant killer.

To be fair, there are those who admire Kevorkian as the lightning rod who changed how Americans view both the care of the dying and assisted suicide. After all, didn’t he bring these issues center stage in courtrooms, state legislatures and the media? No one else did more than he did to promote assisted suicide.

Fanatic, not leader
But I do not see him this way. He was more of a fanatic than the founder of a movement. A zealot who could rally public opinion but could not shape it.

You see, Kevorkian believes in suicide on demand. He thinks that doctors have an obligation to help anyone who decides that their life is not worth living, whatever their reason. Some of the 130 people he helped die had no terminal illnesses. Some were clearly depressed. Others had histories of mental illness. Only a few got any counseling. Kevorkian helped them all to die.

Kevorkian’s problem was and is that he likes death way too much. The enthusiasm he brought to his cause was always deeply troubling. No doubts, no ambivalence, ever seemed to cross his mind as he dispatched his victims. The fact that he helped some to die within hours of meeting them, the fact that he would turn a disabled man’s death into a national spectacle by giving a tape of his murder to "60 Minutes" — never mind that they used it! — and the fact that he never seemed to try particularly hard to talk those who came to him out of their decision to die made him morally suspect then and hardly worth hearing from now.

There are other reasons besides his fanaticism and moral obtuseness that we don’t we need to hear anymore from Jack Kevorkian.

When Kevorkian went to jail, polls showed Americans were not sure what to think about legalizing assisted suicide. They still are not. According to an Associated Press poll out this week, 48 percent of people said assisted suicide should be legal; 44 percent said it should be illegal.

Debate has passed him by
But the debate has grown more sophisticated than it was when Kevorkian was offing people on TV.

The citizens of Oregon legalized a form of physician-assisted suicide in 1997. Proponents said the biggest obstacle they faced was Kevorkian and what he had done. They convinced people to vote for legalization despite Kevorkian, not because of him.

Critics who knew of Kevorkian's seeming disinterest in those he helped to die worried about abuse of the vulnerable and dying in Oregon. However, the passage of the carefully crafted Oregon law seems to have accomplished the goal of giving the terminally ill the option of controlling their death without encouraging them to die.

What is so interesting is that almost no one who asks for a lethal dose of medication actually does end their life. The Oregon law requires a determination of terminal illness by two doctors, counseling and a waiting period before a doctor can assist in dying.

It was the Oregon law, not the actions of Jack Kevorkian, that shook the complacency of the medical and nursing professions in that state and across the country. And it was the rise of palliative care and hospice as an alternative to rather than as a result of Kevorkian that has made dying a less horrifying prospect all over the United States.

We are far from ensuring a dignified and pain-free death for every American. The Terri Schiavo case was a stark reminder that your right to control how and where you die is not beyond the meddlesome grasp of pandering politicians and religious harpies. But we know now what we did not know when Kevorkian went on his assisted-suicide rampage — that we have a duty to make dying bearable and to ensure that each person gets the support, technology and pain control they wish.

The fact that Jack is back is no cause for celebration. The world of death and dying has, thankfully, passed him by. There is still more to talk about but not much useful that Jack Kevorkian can possibly say.

Arthur Caplan, Ph.D., is director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania.

© 2007 MSNBC Interactive
 

Choice Comments:   On the article below, to each his own I suppose....I would not have wanted to spend 19 months, at alone 19 years in a bed while alive and breathing but not living my life.   It is about the value we place on the definition of "living"....and yes I would have wanted my nearest and dearest to hasten my death accordingly.....Nineteen years of someone's else life has been put on hold on the odd chance one may recover...I am not that subservient and couldn't imagine anyone I know feeling like there is a winner in this scenario.....Life is only once and must be lived.

Polish Man Wakes from 19-Year “Coma”, Talks and Expected to Walk Soon

Wife “would fly into a rage every time someone would say that people like him should be euthanized”

By Hilary White

DZIALDOWO, Poland, June 4, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A Polish railway worker has astonished his doctors by waking spontaneously after 19 years and talking about memories of his time in a “coma”, the Associated Press (AP) reported yesterday. Jan Grzewski was injured at work and while he was hospitalized, his doctors found cancer in his brain and predicted he would not recover.

After his doctors concluded nothing more could be done for him, Mr. Grzewski’s wife, Gertruda, cared for him at home, moving his body and feeding him by hand. “I would fly into a rage every time someone would say that people like him should be euthanized, so they don't suffer,” she told Gazeta. “I believed Janek (an affectionate nickname) would recover, AP reported.”

Cases such as Mr. Grzewski’s are being used around the western world as arguments for euthanasia by dehydration or withholding of nutrition for those in what is often called a “permanent vegetative state”. Poland, however, a strongly Catholic country, continues to hold out against international pressure to soften restrictions on euthanasia. In March this year, a poll by Polska Grupa Badawcza found that a majority of Poles support strengthening the law protecting human life. 52 per cent of Polish voters would support a constitutional amendment to ban abortion and euthanasia in all cases.

Mr. Grzewski told Gazeta Dzialdowska, the local daily paper in the northern city of Dzialdowo where he is readjusting to life as a 65 year-old, that at the time of his accident in 1989, the shops were full of nothing but “vinegar and mustard.”

Under communism, he said, “meat was rationed and there were huge petrol queues everywhere. Now I see people on the streets with cellphones and there are so many goods in the shops it makes my head spin.” He told the media that people complain now as much as they did under communism: “These people walk around with their mobile phones and never stop moaning.” But he told his wife that the world is “prettier” now than it was under then and he’s happy to be “back”. “I could not talk or do anything, now it's much better,” he said.

Gertruda noticed last year that he was trying to speak and Grzewski was returned to the hospital for further treatment. Wojciech Pstragowski, a rehabilitation specialist, said, “I am sure that without the dedication of his wife, the patient would not have reached us in the (good) shape that he did.”

After regaining his ability to speak, Mr. Grzewski told his relatives that he has memories of family gatherings while he was supposedly ‘comatose,’ at which they spoke to him, trying to elicit a response.
Mrs. Grzewska, her husband’s doctor said, did the work of an entire intensive care team, turning him every hour to prevent bed sore infections.

“I cried a lot, and prayed a lot,” she said. “Those who came to see us kept asking, ‘When is he going to die?’ But he’s not dead.”

Grzewski’s prognosis is positive and his doctors expect him to be able to walk soon. “At the start, his speech was very unclear, now it is improving daily,” Pstragowski said.

 

2007-04-17 From: Russian News & Information Agency, RU
Euthanasia bill unlikely to make it in Russian parliament - MPs
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20070417/63798642.html

14:42 | 17/ 04/ 2007

MOSCOW, April 17 (RIA Novosti) - The lower house of the Russian parliament will not support a euthanasia bill pending in the upper house, a senior Duma member said Tuesday.

The bill, which is currently under consideration at the Federation Council Social Policy Committee, would allow patients suffering from incurable diseases to be euthanized at their own request.

But Nikolai Gerasimenko (United Russia), deputy chairman of the State Duma Health Committee, said euthanasia could not be applied in Russia, adding that it could "become a weapon in the hands of unscrupulous doctors and lawyers."

He said Russia still has no law guaranteeing provision of good quality medical services for all individuals or a law on healthcare.

Another pro-Kremlin MP said the bill effectively legalizes suicide and murder.

"We are being told that the quality of medical care in Russia is very poor, but this only highlights the need to improve the quality, not attempt to eliminate the problem by sanctioning suicide," said Duma Deputy Speaker Vladimir Katrenko (United Russia).

He also said many of the "hopeless patients" are known to have recovered later.

Vladimir Zhirinovsky, leader of the ultra-nationalist Liberal Democratic Party and deputy speaker of the State Duma, said it would be premature to legalize euthanasia in Russia because demand would be too high.

"This is dangerous. There would not be enough morgues so the entire state budget would have to be spent building new ones," he said, adding many people would accept euthanasia as a way out of difficult living conditions, while others would be forced by their relatives in an effort to "inherit" their apartments.

"In 20 years, euthanasia will be okay here, but now it is too soon," he said.

Opposition to the bill also came from organizations providing palliative care for the terminally ill.

Vera Millionshchikova, chief of Moscow's first hospice, said it was wrong to deprive a person of his life, even if seriously ill, adding no effort must be spared to help a terminally ill patient and that life must be treated as a divine gift.

The opposition was joined by the Russian Orthodox Church.

"From the ROC perspective, both suicide and assisted suicide are totally immoral," said Vsevolod Chaplin, deputy head of the Moscow Patriarchy's department for external relations.

He cautioned against reckless, rash decisions on the matter.

"If such a bill really exists, it must not be passed in haste, merely on the basis of expert opinion (doctors, lawyers, etc.), especially lobby groups," he said.

Choice Comments:  It would appear that even I am less cynical of the motives of those around me than this Russian gentleman......Does the twenty year time line include the period Vladimir Zhirinovsky, leader of the ultra-nationalist Liberal Democratic Party and deputy speaker of the State Duma, may have services for voluntary euthanasia himself....A case of "I'm alright Jack, but "stuff you mate!"...

______
 

http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/to-live-or-to-die-is-no-simple-choice/2007/03/05/1172943352589.html

To live or to die is no simple choice

Peter Coghlan
March 6, 2007
(relates to other articles on My Diary same dates thereabouts)

* The last right, or wrong?

The case of the two women in Sydney who have been charged with the murder of a 74-year-old man with dementia (The Age, 28/2) highlights one of the major difficulties with the legalisation of euthanasia.

It is not yet clear whether the patient in this case had indicated a settled wish to end his life while he was competent to do so; nor is it clear whether his dementia was causing him significant distress; nor, finally, is it clear that he was dying.

Each of these points is important. The obvious argument for euthanasia in this context is when a patient has expressed a settled wish while he is competent to end his life, and goes on to experience real distress as his dementia takes hold and his condition becomes terminal. But there are other possibilities.

A patient in the early stages of dementia may express a wish to die when his condition deteriorates to the point where he loses his capacity to make autonomous decisions. Yet such a patient may go on to lead a more or less happy and contented life even in the advanced stages of the disease - a life that may last for many years. Should we allow euthanasia to be carried out on such patients according to their wishes when they are neither suffering nor terminally ill? That seems to be at odds with the idea of merciful or compassionate killing.

On the other hand, a patient with advanced dementia - someone who has never indicated one way or other whether he wishes to live on in that state - may be deeply distressed and burdened by terrible suffering. Should we allow the close relatives or guardians of such patients to seek legally sanctioned euthanasia for the individual in their care? The argument for compassion in this instance seems to be just as compelling as it is in the case of the patient who had previously indicated an autonomous wish to die. And this argument seems to retain its force whether the patient's condition is terminal or not.

The standard liberal justification for euthanasia is, in Leslie Cannold's words (Opinion, 1/2), "the entitlement of citizens to autonomously choose to die what they see as a good death". This is accurate in one sense: no defenders of euthanasia propose that competent adults who are suffering grievously but want to go on living should be mercifully killed against their wishes.

But Cannold's argument cannot be the whole story. Think of the 20-year-old man whose lover has jilted him, or the Family First politician who has been publicly humiliated through the media exposure of his extramarital affairs. These are autonomous adults and their suffering is real. They may choose to escape that suffering by asking a doctor to administer a lethal injection and so ensure them a quick, certain and painless death. But the choice of the 20-year-old is reckless and that of the politician cowardly; and it
would be perverse for any doctor to agree to help either of them end his life.

At the same time, some of the most heart-rending cases for euthanasia involve incompetents such as those with dementia or children. Consider the American and Australian soldiers in Vietnam who deliberately shot the children they found covered in napalm and burning from head to toe.

What really matters in the debate about the morality of euthanasia is the nature of the suffering borne by particular people. The issue typically arises in those instances in which we judge an individual to be the innocent victim of intolerable suffering - suffering that no one should have to bear. But not all innocent victims of intolerable suffering are terminally ill. Some quadriplegics are afflicted like this, as are some chronic sufferers of acute arthritis - and the list goes on.

When faced with instances of undeserved and unbearable suffering, some people respond with the thought: "How can we stand by and watch this person live on in agony?" But others, faced with the same kind of suffering, cannot bring themselves to destroy the sufferers no matter how keenly they feel their distress because their lives remain precious to them.

Both groups claim to be acting in a spirit of love. Both say the other's compassion is misguided. We may not be able to resolve this difference in public debate.

It does not automatically follow, however, that we should treat euthanasia as a matter of conscience. If euthanasia is made legally available to those who are competent and suffering with a terminal illness, I do not see how it can in justice be denied, first, to those who are competent and suffering a non-terminal condition such as quadriplegia or arthritis, and, second, to incompetents such as those with advanced dementia, the mentally handicapped, and children, who are the innocent victims of unbearable suffering whether terminal or not.

But framing a law that would ensure justice for all these cases would be a nightmare. Practical wisdom cautions strongly against it.

Peter Coghlan is senior lecturer in philosophy,
Australian Catholic University.
 

Choice Comments:  I repeat from elsewhere on my website this mantra sent to me by a 75 year old gentleman. And I quote!

Those people who oppose euthanasia should put their bodies where their conviction are.  I have a fantasy that the objectors enter a chamber where they must endure the simulated pain of those who can't be it any longer.

The moralists who come out of that chamber with their beliefs intact might possibly have a right to them.  All the others who capitulate will surely be glad of the opportunity to finally know that great chasm between morality and wisdom, between law and compassion

LIFE WILL GET A DOLLAR VALUE:  (which incidentally will result in a hastened death as a Bonus.    A Win - Win Solution for those who want Choice - those who don't, remain in crisis while dying.  Juliette is naive to think modern medicine alleviates excessive pain - sometimes it compounds it,  because it seeks to defy a natural death. )

Juliette Hughes (SMH Newspaper)
January 30, 2007

RECENTLY my sisters and I needed to fill out a terminal-wishes document for our mother, who is now in a nursing home and unable to do it herself. It reflects wishes that she expressed before dementia deprived her of much beyond the sharing of affection. The document takes the form of detailed, specific questions regarding how much or how little treatment is desired should she become dangerously ill. We have agreed that she should not be subjected to invasive or painful treatment. If she is in pain, enough pain relief should be given to make her comfortable. If the dosage required shortens her life we will see that as a necessary drawback, not as a moral problem. We will never intentionally hasten her death.

This kind of care is available to anyone who lives here. This is 21st century Australia, where no one is required to live in pain or indignity, where no one is forced to receive any form of treatment. Most people die peacefully. Monash professor of palliative care Margaret O'Connor says she has attended more peaceful, good deaths than she can count, and that this is the experience of most of the medical profession. Australia is a world leader in expertise in managing physical and emotional aspects of the end of life.

End-of-life care is going to look more costly as our population ages on a reduced tax base. Public funding of all medicine, let alone palliative care, is going to be attacked by an increasingly corporatised and Americanised medical culture. Hippocratic ethics are an obstacle to economic rationalist policies. In the United States strong support is given to euthanasia societies by individuals connected with the health-insurance business. Selling intentional death as "dignified autonomy" is the way that such a culture is being introduced. And the long-range planning is happening here and now. Bernard Salt, demographer from KPMG, was quoted last year as saying that we will need to make "brutal decisions" about the financial implications of "keeping 86-year-olds alive for another three months". Interestingly, he also predicted that we would be wealthier. It seems that it will be a matter of political choice rather than necessity, as in America where the poor routinely die of treatable illnesses but which has spent close to $2 trillion dollars on the Iraq war.

Right now we are indeed a lucky country. The culture of Australian medicine in 2007 is redolent with the care of the patient, and with Western medicine's long tradition of first doing no harm. Australia's legal system enshrines this: under our laws, no one should be put to death, or encouraged to commit suicide.

In practice it is recognised that in a very few extreme cases there are grey areas: sometimes people break the law that enshrines the inviolability of a person's life, and deliberately cause death or assist a suicide. They are always treated sympathetically by the community and by the legal system that must inquire into their cases. There are few prosecutions, fewer convictions and no recent custodial sentences in such matters. The same legal culture that prohibits mercy killing and assisted suicide also treats with compassion those who feel driven to commit these acts.

Despite this, there are those who wish to end the protection that the law gives to us all. The recent suicide of Dr John Elliott was done with maximum publicity because he wished to encourage others to push for a change in our laws. He was assisted by Australia's best-known euthanasia advocate, Dr Philip Nitschke. Elliott's suicide worked better for him than that of his previous protegee, Nancy Crick. Nitschke told reporter James Button that the high-profile assisted suicide of Nancy Crick was a "blunder that set (the pro-euthanasia movement) back a long way". For after her death it turned out that Crick did not have cancer. She had been given strong emotional support from new friends in the pro-euthanasia movement. When she changed her mind at one stage and opted for palliative care, some of them rebuked her. She changed her mind back to suicide.

Elliott's suicide seems on the face of it to have been less problematic. He was of the educated middle class and was well resourced financially. But in the report it was obvious that his pain was not properly controlled. He asserted that he was not depressed, yet was determined to kill himself rather than follow treatment that would have increased his quality of life. Dr Marie Fallon, reader in palliative medicine at Edinburgh University, says that unrelieved pain leads to physical and mental exhaustion and psychological devastation. When people are weakened by pain, death can seem the only answer. She says that reversal of suicidal ideation occurs when there is pain relief.

Elliott spoke of the ancient practice of "old Eskimos walking out on the ice". It is a romantic but outdated notion. Contemporary Inuit people aren't driven to such desperate measures: they have ample food and access to modern medicine — as we do in Australia. People only opt for death when they are desperate, lonely, depressed and in pain. As a society we should be addressing those problems. Killing doesn't cure pain — but killing the sufferer is certainly cheaper.

If we remove legal protection of life here, it will not be the ageing middle class that is deprived of care, unless they have unscrupulous relatives. Australians will end up killing people for financial reasons, and the dead will be the vulnerable, the disabled and the poor. They will be seen as burdens on the economy and will be denied the kind of care that keeps life liveable and our society humane. King George V was put down to make the morning newspapers' deadlines. We all deserve better than that.

                                                                                ____
 

SMH Editorial
The line that must never be crossed
January 27, 2007

JOHN ELLIOTT wanted his death to add a new dimension to his life. The Sydney man was determined not to go
quietly. A medical practitioner, he would not only end his pain but at the same time re-ignite the debate
about euthanasia. Dr Elliott will certainly get his dying wish. Amid the controversy surrounding his death
in a Swiss euthanasia clinic, there will be both sympathy for his suffering and admiration for his
stand. However, emotion cannot be allowed to cloud the ethical and practical principles that must inform the
euthanasia debate. Whatever the circumstances of Dr Elliott's case, the principles remain the same. So,
too, is the conclusion to be drawn from those principles: the law must continue to prohibit euthanasia.

There is no argument that Dr Elliott was very ill, with multiple myeloma. It was intense pain that led the
79-year-old to the Zurich clinic of the Dignitas organisation. It agreed to help him die, as it had
helped many before him, including four other Australians. He would be given a fatal dose of the
barbiturate sodium pentobarbital. Despite his suffering, Dr Elliott's thinking was lucid and unsentimental:

he approached death with a sense of relief, and an equally clear sense of public duty.

He would sacrifice the privacy of his last hours to promote euthanasia, and so he allowed the Herald to share his final days.

In the end Dr Elliott's passing was as peaceful as he and his family could have hoped. However, whether
procedures go well, or do not, in any particular case is not the central issue.

The question of euthanasia arises most frequently in relation to the very old when they are facing a slow
and possibly painful death. Yet medicine has developed increasingly effective palliative care to reduce or
eliminate the pain associated with most terminal illness. In some cases, alleviating pain will shorten
life. But that is not euthanasia. The heavy burden on doctors caring for the terminally ill includes judging
the line that cannot be crossed. That will not always be easy. Nor should it be. Some decisions about the end
of life will inevitably fall into grey areas. Yet a string of surveys here and overseas suggests doctors
are readier than ever to administer pain-killing drugs or to withdraw or withhold treatment even when that
will hasten death. Such relief for the terminally ill is to be welcomed, and the law's application is
appropriately sensitive to this need. Such surveys of doctors' actual practice undermine the common argument
by euthanasia advocates that patients suffer unnecessarily because doctors fear criminal prosecution. How often are doctors criminally prosecuted? Patients who suffer pain at the end of life can expect an easeful death, and that the law will not
stand in the way.

There is no knowing where euthanasia law would take us once it had a foothold in the statutes. Overwhelmingly,
families wanting to hasten the death of loved ones are motivated by love and compassion. But removing existing
criminal sanctions could leave little to inhibit family members conniving with compliant doctors to end a
patient's life for other, unacceptable motives such as greed or impatience. And cash-strapped health systems
will surely find it cheaper to institutionalise death than care for the physical and emotional wellbeing of
the old and frail.

So the law should remain, as a necessary check and safeguard. The prohibition of euthanasia, far from
causing unnecessary suffering, protects those who most need protection - the elderly and vulnerable. How can
the community be sure that voluntary euthanasia will not, almost inevitably, lead to non-voluntary mercy
killing of the aged or the disabled? No one has been able to propose a law that would limit euthanasia
unambiguously to those who definitely want it and who are terminally ill. Indeed, the advocates of euthanasia
move too readily from their professed concern to ease the sufferings of the terminally ill to a broader
campaign to provide information about making suicide easier to those troubled enough to contemplate it.

A legal prohibition is safer for all. It is the best answer to the challenges inherent in framing a law that
will not be open to abuse, manipulation or de facto extension. In this argument between life and death,
life wins every time.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/editorial/the-line-that-must-never-be-crossed/2007/01/26/1169788690906.html

                                                _____

January 22, 2007:

Beware of the euphemism trap
Gussied-up language often masks dangerous truth
Mark Pickup
My Glass is Half Full
By MARK PICKUP

Language that obscures or hides truth must be rejected by people of reason - and particularly by Christians. Unclear language leads to unclear and muddled thinking. The opposite is also true: Clear language leads to clear thinking.

My Oxford Dictionary defines the word "euphemism" like this: euphemism n.: substitution of mild or vague or roundabout expression for harsh or blunt or direct one.
Victorian society

The gentle art of creating euphemisms came into its own in middle-class Victorian society. Words like "frillies" and "unmentionables" expressed shock felt by the public with subjects previously considered too private for polite company.

Euphemisms are used to try and avoid unpleasant topics or to avoid offending people. Things that terrify us like sickness, disability and death have produced many euphemisms. For example, cancer may be referred to as The Big C.

For many people cancer is the most terrifying disease they can imagine and so they will even avoid the word. A doctor may express his suspicions of cancer in a patient by referring to a "peculiar growth" or saying he wants to take a closer look at some "atypical cells."

Human unwillingness to deal with death results in countless euphemisms. A general fear of disability has also created a myriad of euphemistic expressions.
Soft-pedal

Many of these phrases are intended not to offend people with disabilities. A man is not crippled, he is "physically challenged." A person is not deranged or retarded, they are "mentally challenged."

I live in a wheelchair because of multiple sclerosis so I've heard it all. I'm "mobility challenged," "physically challenged," "differently abled." While I appreciate the desire of others not to hurt my feelings or offend me, euphemisms get tiresome and make language clumsy. We live in an age of euphemania!

"Anyone who kills a human being, himself or another, is guilty of murder."
- St. Augustine

Euphemisms can also have sinister motives. During the Second Word War, Nazis transported mental patients and the physically disabled to their deaths in gas chambers by an ambulance service they called the Public Welfare Transport for the Sick Company. The Nazi euthanasia program of gassing thousands of disabled people provided a training ground for gassing millions of Jews.

At the dawn of the 21st century, dark euphemisms are used to disguise new brutality and inhumanity. Mass murder of entire groups of people is called "ethnic cleansing." The death of civilians caught in the crossfire of war is "collateral damage."

Euthanasia is gaining respectability with the phrase "death with dignity." In November 2006, the American Public Health Association passed an interim policy adopting terms such as "aid in dying" or "patient-directed dying" to replace assisted suicide.

Advocates of euthanasia and assisted suicide conjure up noble sounding terms like "self-deliverance" and "choice in dying." It is an attempt to sanitize suicide and assisted suicide, from its long history of shame dating back to the time of St. Augustine (354-430). In City of God he wrote: "God's command, 'Thou shalt not kill,' is to be taken as forbidding self-destruction - anyone who kills a human being, himself or another, is guilty of murder."

Do not be fooled. There is nothing noble about willful self-destruction. Christians must not be seduced by clever word manipulators into accepting evil camouflaged as good. Euphemisms become sophistry. Resist evil or you may find that what was unthinkable yesterday, becomes thinkable today and commonplace tomorrow. If you don't believe this, consider what happened with abortion over the last 40 years.

Euthanasia, assisted suicide (and abortion) violate the fifth commandment. They are grave sins and contrary to moral law. The Catechism of the Catholic Church speaks about the gravity of suicide: "We are stewards, not owners, of the life God has entrusted to us. It is not ours to dispose of" (no. 2280).

To those who would assist in suicide come the words, "Voluntary co-operation in suicide is contrary to moral law" (no. 2282).
Stumbling block

Shortly after the section dealing with suicide comes the Catechism's section on scandal. The word "scandal" comes from the Greek word "skandalon" meaning snare or stumbling block. Our Lord uttered his curse to those who cause another person to stumble or sin:

"Whoever causes one of these little ones - who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea" (Matthew 18:6).

The Greek verb used in this passage for causes to sin is skandalzein which literally means causes to stumble. If suicide is sin (and it certainly is) then people who help or assist in suicide are among those Jesus cursed.

And what about those who use powerful euphemisms to promote evil as good? I fear that they too might find being thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck would be preferable to what awaits them.

What awaits those that cause others to stumble? In St. Mark's account Jesus goes on to speak of the unquenchable fires of Gehenna (hell). Is that what awaits those to cause others to sin? St. Augustine commented about this passage of Scripture too. He said, "That emphatic warning coming from divine lips is enough to make any man tremble."

January 14, 2007:

www.euthanasiaprocon.org

A mixed bag of debating points,  for and against VE,  which was written side by side, on the same page -  on the website above.  I have just included the both arguments on each file - that is Anti VE Articles and  Pro VE Articles.

PRO: "The right of a competent, terminally ill person to avoid excruciating pain and embrace a timely and dignified death bears the sanction of history and is implicit in the concept of ordered liberty. The exercise of this right is as central to personal autonomy and bodily integrity as rights safeguarded by this Court's decisions relating to marriage, family relationships, procreation, contraception, child rearing and the refusal or termination of life-saving medical treatment. In particular, this Court's recent decisions concerning the right to refuse medical treatment and the right to abortion instruct that a mentally competent, terminally ill person has a protected liberty interest in choosing to end intolerable suffering by bringing about his or her own death.

A state's categorical ban on physician assistance to suicide -- as applied to competent, terminally ill patients who wish to avoid unendurable pain and hasten inevitable death -- substantially interferes with this protected liberty interest and cannot be sustained."

-- American Civil Liberties Union
Amicus Brief, Vacco v. Quill
1996


CON: "The history of the law's treatment of assisted suicide in this country has been and continues to be one of the rejection of nearly all efforts to permit it. That being the case, our decisions lead us to conclude that the asserted 'right' to assistance in committing suicide is not a fundamental liberty interest protected by the Due Process Clause."

-- Washington v. Glucksberg (PDF) 62.8KB
U.S. Supreme Court Majority Opinion
1997
2. Patient Suffering at End-of-Life

PRO: "At the Hemlock Society we get calls daily from desperate people who are looking for someone like Jack Kevorkian to end their lives which have lost all quality... Americans should enjoy a right guaranteed in the European Declaration of Human Rights--the right not to be forced to suffer. It should be considered as much of a crime to make someone live who with justification does not wish to continue as it is to take life without consent."

-- Faye Girsh
Senior Adviser, Final Exit Network
"How Shall We Die," Free Inquiry
Winter 2001


CON: "Activists often claim that laws against euthanasia and assisted suicide are government mandated suffering. But this claim would be similar to saying that laws against selling contaminated food are government mandated starvation.

Laws against euthanasia and assisted suicide are in place to prevent abuse and to protect people from unscrupulous doctors and others. They are not, and never have been, intended to make anyone suffer."

-- International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide
"Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide: Frequently Asked Questions," www.internationaltaskforce.org
August 9, 2006
3. Slippery Slope to Legalized Murder

PRO: "Especially with regard to taking life, slippery slope arguments have long been a feature of the ethical landscape, used to question the moral permissibility of all kinds of acts... The situation is not unlike that of a doomsday cult that predicts time and again the end of the world, only for followers to discover the next day that things are pretty much as they were...

We not only can distinguish between [voluntary and non-voluntary] cases [of euthanasia] but do...

We need the evidence that shows that horrible slope consequences are likely to occur. The mere possibility that such consequences might occur, as noted earlier, does not constitute such evidence."

-- R.G. Frey, Ph.D.
Professor of Philosophy, Bowling Green State University
"The Fear of a Slippery Slope," Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide: For and Against
1998


CON: "In debates with those bioethicists and physicians who believe that euthanasia is both deeply compassionate and also a logical way to cut health care costs, I am invariably scorned when I mention 'the slippery slope.' When the states legalize the deliberate ending of certain lives--I try to tell them--it will eventually broaden the categories of those who can be put to death with impunity.

I am told that this is nonsense in our age of highly advanced medical ethics. And American advocates of euthanasia often point to the Netherlands as a model--a place where euthanasia is quasi-legal for patients who request it...

Yet the September 1991 official government Remmelink Report on euthanasia in the Netherlands revealed that at least 1,040 people die every year from involuntary euthanasia. Their physicians were so consumed with compassion that they decided not to disturb the patients by asking thier opinion on the matter."

-- Nat Hentoff
Columnist, The Village Voice
"The Slippery Slope of Euthanasia," The Washington Post
October 3, 1992
4. Hippocratic Oath and Prohibition of Killing

PRO: "If the prevention and relief of suffering are the aims of medical interventions--and not only the preservation or prolongation of life--it seems imperative to rethink our profession's reluctance to participate in euthanasia or even be present during an assisted suicide without legal guarantees of protection.

Many opponents of these practices point to the Hippocratic Oath and its prohibition on hastening death. But those who turn to the oath in an effort to shape or legitimize their ethical viewpoints must realize that the statement has been embraced over approximately the past 200 years far more as a symbol of professional cohesion than for its content. Its pithy sentences cannot be used as all-encompassing maxims to avoid the personal responsibility inherent in the practice of medicine. Ultimately, a physician's conduct at the bedside is a matter of individual conscience.

The wisdom of past years and moments enters into the deliberation, but decision making in the present bears a burden that is unique to the particular transaction between the doctor and the individual patient who has come for help. To seek refuge in ancient aphorisms is to turn away from the unique needs of each of our patients who have entrusted themselves to our care."

-- Sherwin Nuland, M.D.
Clinical Professor of Surgery, Yale School of Medicine
"Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in Practice," New England Journal of Medicine
February 24, 2000


CON: "The prohibition against killing patients...stands as the first promise of self-restraint sworn to in the Hippocratic Oath, as medicine's primary taboo: 'I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody if asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect'... In forswearing the giving of poison when asked for it, the Hippocratic physician rejects the view that the patient's choice for death can make killing him right. For the physician, at least, human life in living bodies commands respect and reverence--by its very nature. As its respectability does not depend upon human agreement or patient consent, revocation of one's consent to live does not deprive one's living body of respectability. The deepest ethical principle restraining the physician's power is not the autonomy or freedom of the patient; neither is it his own compassion or good intention. Rather, it is the dignity and mysterious power of human life itself, and therefore, also what the Oath calls the purity and holiness of life and art to which he has sworn devotion."

-- Leon Kass, M.D., Ph.D.
Addie Clark Harding Professor, Committee on Social Thought and the College, University of Chicago
"Neither For Love Nor Money," Public Interest
1989
5. Government Involvement in End-of-Life Decisions

PRO: "We'll all die. But in an age of increased longevity and medical advances, death can be suspended, sometimes indefinitely, and no longer slips in according to its own immutable timetable.

So, for both patients and their loved ones, real decisions are demanded: When do we stop doing all that we can do? When do we withhold which therapies and allow nature to take its course? When are we, through our own indecision and fears of mortality, allowing wondrous medical methods to perversely prolong the dying rather than the living?

These intensely personal and socially expensive decisions should not be left to governments, judges or legislators better attuned to highway funding."

-- Los Angeles Times
Editorial: "Planning for Worse Than Taxes"
March 22, 2005


CON: "Cases like Schiavo's touch on basic constitutional rights, such as the right to live and the right to due process, and consequently there could very well be a legitimate role for the federal government to play. There's a precedent--as a result of the highly publicized deaths of infants with disabilities in the 1980s, the federal government enacted 'Baby Doe Legislation,' which would withhold federal funds from hospitals that withhold lifesaving treatment from newborns based on the expectation of disability. The medical community has to have restrictions on what it may do to people with disabilities--we've already seen what some members of that community are willing to do when no restrictions are in place."

-- Not Dead Yet
"End of Life Planning: Q & A with Disabilities Advocate," Reno Gazette-Journal
November 22, 2003
6. Palliative (End-of-Life) Care

PRO: "Palliative care has been the main beneficiary of the Oregon Death with Dignity Act [which legalized physician-assisted suicide] so far. Since its passage, we've seen a great resurgence of interest in the medical community in palliative care. Hospice referrals have increased by 20 percent, and now Oregon leads the nation in prescription of morphine. This has a salutary effect on end of life care."

-- Barbara Coombs Lee, J.D.
President, Compassion & Choices
"A Right to Die?," PBS Newshour
November 26, 1997


CON: "Once a patient has the means to take their own life, there can be decreased incentive to care for the patient's symptoms and needs. The case of Michael Freeland is an example. Michael had been given a lethal prescription and when his doctors were planning for his discharge to his home from the hospital, one physician wrote that while he probably needed attendant care at home, providing additional care may be a 'moot point' because he had 'life-ending medication'. His assisted suicide doctor did nothing to care for his pain and palliative care needs. This seriously ill patient was receiving poor advice and medical care because he had lethal drugs."

-- Physicians for Compassionate Care
"Top 10 FAQs," www.pccef.org
2006
7. Healthcare Spending Implications

PRO: "Even though the various elements that make up the American healthcare system are becoming more circumspect in ensuring that money is not wasted, the cap that marks a zero-sum healthcare system is largely absent in the United States... Considering the way we finance healthcare in the United States, it would be hard to make a case that there is a financial imperative compelling us to adopt physician-assisted suicide in an effort to save money so that others could benefit."

-- Merrill Matthews
Director, Center for Health Policy Studies
"Would Physician-Assisted Suicide Save the Healthcare System Money?," Physician Assisted Suicide: Expanding the Debate
1998


CON: "Cost containment well could become the engine that pulls the legislative train along the track to death on demand. Those who advocate dismantling the barriers that now protect patients from assisted suicide recognize the power of cost containment."

-- Rita Marker, J.D.
Executive Director, International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide
"Assisted Suicide and Cost Containment," www.internationaltaskforce.org
1999
8. Social Groups at Risk of Abuse

PRO: "To date, persons who have chosen to use the [Oregon Death with Dignity] law have been well educated, have had excellent health care, have had good insurance, have had access to hospice and have been well supported financially, emotionally and physically."
-- Death With Dignity National Center
"Frequently Asked Questions," www.deathwithdignity.org
January 22, 2006


CON: "Assisted suicide and euthanasia would carry us into new terrain American society has never sanctioned assisted suicide or mercy killing. We believe that the practices would be profoundly dangerous for large segments of the population, especially in light of the widespread failure of American medicine to treat pain adequately or to diagnose and treat depression in many cases. The risks would extend to all individuals who are ill. They would be most severe for those whose autonomy and well-being are already compromised by poverty, lack of access to good medical care, or membership in a stigmatized social group. The risks of legalizing assisted suicide and euthanasia for these individuals, in a health care system and society that cannot effectively protect against the impact of inadequate resources and ingrained social disadvantage, are likely to be extraordinary."

-- New York State Task Force on Life and the Law
"When Death is Sought - Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in the Medical Context," http://newyorkhealth.gov
1994
9. Physician's Role as Patients Approach Death

PRO: "Suicide assisted by a humane physician spares the patient the pain and suffering that may be part of the dying process, and grants the patient a 'mercifully' easy death...

The most plausible party for providing such assistance [in death] is the physician. It is the physician who has access to drugs, who has specialized knowledge of appropriate dosages, and who knows how to prevent side effects such as nausea and vomiting. Equally important, the physician can be a source of emotional support for both patient and family. Seen in this light, the right to assistance in suicide is plausibly construed as the dying patient's right to help from his or her own physician, at least where there is a personal physician who knows the patient well, who has been directly, extensively, and intimately connected with and responsible for that person's care, who may know the family, and who understands, better than any other physician or other party able to provide assistance in suicide, that person's hopes, fears, and wishes about how to die."

-- Margaret Battin, Ph.D.
Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Adjunct Professor of Internal Medicine, Division of Medical Ethics, University of Utah
"Is a Physician Ever Obligated to Help a Patient Die?," Regulating How We Die
1998


CON: "It is understandable, though tragic, that some patients in extreme duress--such as those suffering from a terminal, painful, debilitating illness--may come to decide that death is preferable to life. However, permitting physicians to engage in euthanasia would ultimately cause more harm than good. Euthanasia is fundamentally incompatible with the physician's role as healer, would be difficult or impossible to control, and would pose serious societal risks.

The involvement of physicians in euthanasia heightens the significance of its ethical prohibition. The physician who performs euthanasia assumes unique responsibility for the act of ending the patient's life. Euthanasia could also readily be extended to incompetent patients and other vulnerable populations.

Instead of engaging in euthanasia, physicians must aggressively respond to the needs of patients at the end of life. Patients should not be abandoned once it is determined that cure is impossible. Patients near the end of life must continue to receive emotional support, comfort care, adequate pain control, respect for patient autonomy, and good communication."

-- American Medical Association
Policy E-2.21 Euthanasia, www.ama-assn.org
1996
10. Value of Life as Patients Approach Death

PRO: "Life itself is commonly taken to be a central good for persons, often valued for its own sake, as well as necessary for pursuit of all other goods within a life. But when a competent patient decides to forgo all further life-sustaining treatment then the patient, either explicitly or implicitly, commonly decides the the best life possible for him or her with treatment is of sufficiently poor quality that it is worse than no further life at all. Life is no longer considered a benefit by the patient, but has now become a burden. The same judgement underlies a request for euthanasia: continued life is seen by the patient as no longer a benefit, but now a burden. Especially in the often severely compromised and debilitated states of many critically ill or dying patients, there is no objective standard, but only the competent patient's judgment of whether continued life is no longer a benefit."

-- Dan Brock, Ph.D.
Frances Glessner Lee Professor of Medical Ethics and Director of the Division of Medical Ethics, Harvard Medical School
"Voluntary Active Euthanasia," Hastings Center Report
1992


CON: "The equality-of-human-life ethic requires that each of us be considered of equal inherent moral worth, and it makes the preservation and protection of human life society's first priority. Accepting euthanasia would replace the equality-of-human-life ethic with a utilitarian and nihilistic 'death culture' that views the intentional ending of certain human lives as an appropriate and necessary answer to life's most difficult challenges... [T]he dire consequences that would flow from such a radical shift in morality are profound and disturbing."

-- Wesley Smith, J.D.
Consultant, International Anti-Euthanasia Task Force
"Introduction," Forced Exit
1997
PRO Euthanasia CON Euthanasia
TOP

December 15 2006:

2006-12-15 From: The Indian Catholic, New Delhi, IN
Cardinal Barragán: Church does not support therapeutic cruelty nor euthanasia
http://www.theindiancatholic.com/newsread.asp?nid=5092

Rome (CNA) - The President of the Pontifical Council for Health Pastoral Care, Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, stated that for the Catholic Church so called “therapeutic cruelty,” or the unnecessary prolongation of life by extreme measures, is unacceptable and assured that the challenge is to distinguish these extreme cases from requests for euthanasia.

In statements from La Repubblica, an Italian daily newspaper, the Prelate referred to Italian government’s initiative in requesting the opinion of a team of experts regarding the case of Piergiorgio Welby, an Italian that suffers from progressive muscular dystrophy. For the past few months, he has made demands to disconnect his respirator.

"It is fair that in this dramatic case experts should be consulted to determine if this is a matter of ‘therapeutic cruelty’ or if we have a request of euthanasia," said Cardinal Lozano.

The Prelate reiterated that, "the Church will never be able to accept ‘therapeutic cruelty,’ an unacceptable practice, because it uses disproportionate and useless means for the care of the terminally ill."

Nevertheless, he indicated that the problem is, "to recognize if there truly exists a case of therapeutic cruelty."
 

This is an excerpt from a recent letter to the President of Italy from Piergiorgio Welby which may explain his viewpoint, as the pawn in the legalities on whether "there truly exists a case of therapeutic cruelty"...

(sourced World Right to Die Newsletter.

....euthanasia is not a "dignified death" but an appropriate death...all patients want to be cured, not to die...Between wishes and hopes, time passes relentlessly and with the passage of time, hopes grow weaker and the desire to be cured becomes a desire to shorten the course of desperation before reaching that natural end.  

Pope Benedict XV1 has defended "the inviolable dignity of human life, from conception its natural end"....But what is natural about a hole in the belly and a pump that fills it with fats and proteins'?    What is natural about a hole in the windpipe and a pump that blows air into the lungs?   What is natural about a body kept biologically functional with the help of artificial respirators, artificial food, artificial hydration, artificial intestinal emptying, of death artificially postponed
                                                                        ___

October 18 2006:

“Abortion and Euthanasia: Merciful Solutions?”
University of Sydney Catholic Chaplaincy Mission week
By Most Rev. Anthony Fisher OP
Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney
11/10/2006

Christ the Divine Mercy
 

The question I have been set today is: are abortion and euthanasia merciful solutions? In other words, does killing at the beginning or end of life express that kind of self-donation and reverence and relationship?

I want to acknowledge two things.

First, that being a merciful solution is not the only reason some people ask for or support abortion or euthanasia. There can be other reasons, such as ‘autonomy’, the desire to be free to live and die as one wishes, without interference from others. There is a lot that might be said about that, but this is not the time. Today I want to examine whether these are really merciful solutions to people’s problems: if people have other reasons for wanting abortion and euthanasia – and I recognize that they might – we will have to discuss them another day.

I also want to acknowledge that many people who seek or provide or support the availability of abortion and/or euthanasia do so really believing they are being compassionate in doing so. I would not presume that all ‘pro-choicers’ are merciful in their motivation or equally so – any more than I would presume all ‘pro-lifers’ were – but I recognize that many are driven by a kind of benevolence and genuinely want to serve others well by doing so.

Just as it is unhelpful to label all ‘pro-lifers’ as hot-heated religious fanatics, so I think it is false to presume all ‘pro-choicers’
are cold-hearted killers.

Let us presume, therefore, that from the point of view of those proposing or supporting abortion and/or euthanasia that they do so as a sort of ‘mercy killing’. They believe that it is an act of kindness. In the case of abortion, it is thought to be an act of kindness towards the child whose life is ended or towards the mother whose pregnancy is ‘terminated’, or towards others. In the case of euthanasia, it is thought to be an act of mercy towards the suffering person whose life is thereby shortened or towards the family or carers who are having trouble coping, or towards others such as the society whose resources are limited.

(big snip)

Euthanasia as mercy killing
**

Advocates of euthanasia often argue that it is the compassionate or merciful answer to cases of ‘intolerable’ suffering among the ‘hopelessly’ ill. They commonly draw on their own experience as witnesses to the harrowing death of a loved one. But are there are better ways of demonstrating compassion than by lethal injection?

To argue for euthanasia as mercy-killing rather than as an expression of personal autonomy is to allow that euthanasia cannot be restricted to the ‘hopelessly ill’ or even the sick or injured: suffering of other sorts may be just as serious, intractable and ‘intolerable’. The logic of suicide or homicide as compassion cannot be restricted to the terminally ill: instead it enlarges the category of the terminally ill.
Nor can it be restricted to those who ask for euthanasia, i.e. to ‘voluntary’ euthanasia of competent, free and informed adults. There may well be infants and children, senile or otherwise severely handicapped people or unconscious patients whose claim to such ‘mercy’ would seem to be at least as great as that of those who are in a position to make such a request. Put bluntly: euthanasia as mercy killing cannot be restricted to voluntary euthanasia. And sure enough, everywhere where it has been commonly practiced, such as in modern Holland, involuntary and non-voluntary euthanasia accompanies or follows soon after voluntary.

Of course if mercy for the suffering person really is the driving motor for euthanasia, we would expect its advocates to be addressing the suffering itself first and head-on. They would be fighting to ensure that disabled, frail elderly and ‘hopelessly’ ill people were given access to high quality healthcare, in hospital, in the community or at home. We would also ensure that they had access to the range of non-medical human, social and spiritual supports that people need in these situations. At the very least we would guarantee that they were kept as free of pain and other distressing symptoms as possible. But that has not been the case in places such as the Northern Territory where the euthanasia experiment was finally over-turned. Instead, all too often, those places most enthusiastic about euthanasia are least willing to provide real alternatives. Sounds very familiar to the abortion story.

With the best of contemporary pain and discomfort management techniques nearly all patients can be kept comfortable nearly all of the time. But sadly there are still Australians who go without such care. Real mercy demands better. With improved training in and access to palliative care, the opportunities for such care could be significantly increased and patients given the opportunity to live their last days well.

What I am suggesting, therefore, is that we should be looking for positive responses to illness, disability and dying – as we should be looking for positive responses to unexpected pregnancy – and be very loathe to embrace destructive ones, such as abandonment and homicide. We would be trying to kill the pain, not the person in pain. Yet the sad reality is that there is still much to be done to ensure that every Australian has access to such care. Euthanasia, far from being the merciful solution in these cases, seems to me more like an evasion.

The experience of health professionals is that when on-lookers talk of “putting granny out of her misery”, all too often what they really mean is “putting granny out of our misery”. Caring is not easy or cheap; it can be very hard. But a mature and authentic mercy does not seek cheap or quick fixes where there are none; it is not the strategy of curing misery by killing the miserable or cost-cutting by cutting the costly.
Rather, as I suggested at the beginning of my talk, it entails standing by the sides of those who suffer and investing our time, our energy, our very selves in them, sharing in their suffering, offering the best care we can, and helping them to maintain hope, meaning, self-esteem, a sense of being loved and respected.

Giving this positive rather than lethal kind of care affirms that the lives, the persons, of such fellow Australians still matter, and matter very much. It conforms with our basic duties of care and respect for every human person however wounded or handicapped. And it maintains our bonds of community with them to the last. That is a kind of respecting and loving which no one should pretend is easy: it can be very hard. But it can also call forth from us all that is most noble in the human spirit.

Dignity is not recognised by telling the old, the infirm or the ‘hopelessly’ ill through our laws how ‘undignified’ we think their condition is, how we think they would be better off dead, or how willing we are to hurry their deaths along. Love and mercy are not expressed by adding killing to the series of rejections already heaped upon many of the sick and dying in our community. Surely in a land that prides itself on ‘mateship’ and ‘a fair go’ we can find more creative ways of demonstrating love and respect than by killing people.

But is the ‘sanctity of life’ principle merciful?

Because of the vulnerability of human beings, especially those at the beginning and the end of their lives, those who are immature, sick or frail elderly, it is especially important that health professionals have a clear sense of what is owing to others by way of action and restraint.
Thus primum non nocere (‘above all, do no harm’) was the classic first principle of healthcare ethics and the Hippocratic Oath included the promise that: “I will never use my art to injure or wrong my patient. I shall give no deadly drug to anybody [for suicide or euthanasia] even if asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect. Nor shall I give a woman an abortifacient.” Such moral constraints helped health professionals to know how they should and should not express their compassion for those in their care.

But will a truly merciful person be an absolutist about such things?
Most people regard killing simply for advantage or convenience or out of callousness or indifference as inconsistent with the recognition of human dignity and immoral. But dilemmas arise when the potential victim is very young or very old (as in abortion and some euthanasia), or is a burden to others (e.g. the pregnant woman, those caring for a senile person), or is severely handicapped or is in great pain or is asking to be killed or is very dependent, or is a great strain on resources, or is living in a state of persistent unconsciousness, or is otherwise at a very low ebb… Then we may well sympathize with those who feel driven to compromise the sanctity of life principle and we may even feel so tempted ourselves. The question for us is: what do I do with that sympathy and temptation?

The so-called ‘sanctity’ or ‘inviolability’ of life principle is not a merely Catholic or Judeo-Christian theological principle, but one deeply embedded in law, all the major world religions, and most ethical systems throughout the world, included in international human rights documents and our common and civil law, and strongly felt by people of all beliefs and none. Traditionally worded “you shall not kill” it is based upon the notion that human beings are entitled to great and equal respect: their lives are of such intrinsic importance that no choice intentionally to bring about an innocent person’s death can be right. Thus amongst the ways in which health professionals may not deal with people, killing them is one.

Abortion and euthanasia are examples of directly killing.

(snip)

Abortion and euthanasia can be cloaked in the language of mercy but they are, in fact, a lethal kind of mercy. They kill the innocent.

Of course many who seek abortion or euthanasia may “do so out of anguish, desperation or conditioning”; they “may be motivated by pity rather than a selfish refusal to be burdened with the life of someone who is suffering” (EV 15, 66). This reduces or removes any personal sinfulness. Nonetheless, as John Paul II argued, this is ‘false mercy’, indeed ‘a disturbing perversion of mercy’.

The good news is that something better is possible for human beings.
Merciful support so that we might succeed, and supportful mercy when we have failed, are available through the Word of God, the sacraments and the Christian community. This helps rebuild a sort of “covenant” not just between ourselves and God but between the generations, so damaged by both abortion and euthanasia (cf. EV 94).

Likewise the sick and elderly need real support in their pain and frailty. They need more choices, not fewer, and they need choices which do not demand that they decide between their own comfort and their principles, between a sense of self-worth and the unwillingness of others to honour their worth.

The new debate over abortion and euthanasia reveals both points of convergence and deep chasms in our community and what some commentators have called ‘the culture wars’ about the most fundamental questions such as the meaning of life, the nature of the human person and community, the place of love, freedom and self-sacrifice in a life, the kind of civilisation we are building and bequeathing to our children and our elderly, and indeed whether there will be any children or elderly to whom we might bequeath our civilisation. As the Catholic Bishops of Australia recently said: “Every human being deserves our reverence and love, from the beginning to the end of the continuum of life. All human rights ultimately depend upon that recognition. But respect for human dignity also requires practical support for vulnerable people. We need to build a culture that respects the link between life and love, welcomes and esteems children and families, and supports women in every way.” So too at the other end of life. This debate goes not just to the heart of some life-and-death decisions about particular children and their mothers, particular patients and elderly people, but also to the very heart of our civilisation and culture. Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy. Lord have mercy!

"Choice comments" In the interest of balance I include articles such as the item above.  It reinforces painfully for me, why I cannot see the authority of the Catholic Church as truly representative of what a loving and merciful God would want,  should there be such an entity.   Christ would have had mercy on the dying because he himself is said to have hung from the cross in agony for some six hours and despaired.....Lord, lord why has thou forsaken me???   Imagine what it would have been like had he hung on the cross for 6 days, six weeks, 6 months, or six years.   Many many people "hang" in excruciating pain for much longer than Christ, yet their pain is considered "a gift to improve one's spirituality and make us better people"  

Whilst respecting others choice to suffer indefinitely because of technology where 90 years olds "are revived" to be returned to the nursing home as witnessed myself very recently, this is not my choice.  

This Granny will be quite ready to be put out of her misery.  Left to nature's methods many would have died of natural causes.   We've already messed with God's Will by defying nature with medical technology.  

Putting the considerations of the "granny" first, that is to show, rather than talk the talk, about love, mercy, compassion, empathy, and above all genuine humanity. 
 

October 11, 2006:

Daughter angry about suicide support
‘My Mum was talked into dying’
Article written Sonia Campbell
Cairns Weekend Post
7Oct06

CAPTION: Family concerns: Irene committed suicide in 2005, an act her daughter Marie says her mother was “brainwashed” into by euthanasia supporters.

Denial: Euthanasia advocate Philip Nitschke says his organisation was not involved with Irene’s death.

Marie Gleeson knew her mother was mentally ill, but she is convinced she was “brainwashed” into ending her life.

Mrs Gleeson’s 78 year old mother Irene – who suffered from chronic paranoid schizophrenia – committed suicide in July 2005 after consulting a group founded by euthanasia advocate Philip Nitschke.

She had at least one meeting with Dr Nitschke in Cairns, went through a series of complicated steps leading to her eventual suicide, and phoned the Nitschke-led organisation, Exit International, on the day she died.

“Without a doubt she was (brainwashed),” Mrs Gleeson told The Weekend Post. “Mum was mentally ill, not terminally ill”.

“Had I known the power of this organisation and the secretiveness. Had I known and fully understood the power that was involved behind the scenes…I would have done anything to stop her.

“I feel like going to the people behind it and saying this is my backyard and you have no right to become involved.

“You come in and see my mother in trouble and you encourage people to disconnect from those that care about them. You just take this lady at face value and believe what she’s saying… without consulting her family.”

Mrs Gleeson believes her mother would have contacted the group during times of depression associated with her schizophrenia.

While Dr Nitschke has fought condemnation in the past for supporting people who were not terminally ill, but wanting to die, he told The Weekend post Mrs Gleeson’s mother would have had a “rational” thinking mind.

He said he was “almost certainly” would have met Irene, but denied having any involvement with her death.

“We won’t help people to end their lives because it is against the law in Queensland,” Dr Nitschke said. “The fact that she was a member (of Exit International) then, yes, we talk to people and give them access to information. (But) when a person indicates that they don’t want their children involved we respect their decision”.

Dr Nitschke said the group did not help anyone “psychiatrically certified” and undertook “deep background” checks and medical referrals in every case.

Mrs Gleeson now plans to lobby the State Attorney General to remove a “how to” euthanasia guide from sale.

campbellso@tcp.newsletd.com.au

"Choice" knows that Dr Nitschke does not assist people to die.   He provides advice which enables people to prevent horrendous deaths from being misinformed.   He is one of the first people to tell you to find a blank sheet of paper and write down the list of names of people who would be prepared to go to jail for you for perhaps twenty years.   

Euthanasia Societies cannot be held responsible for anyone's actions.    Every Help Line in Australia would be in strife if the support I got was indicative - "please get off the line, this is for genuine suicides"  How would that Counselor have a clue "whether I was or wasn't,  a potential suicide.   Many suffering ill health have very black days which I call "Bad Hair Days".     In the face of governments to consistently failing to face up to their responsibilities for accepting that the majority of Australians want the means for choice and dignity in dying eg 70% plus, then people will continue to commit suicide.   

Many relatives believe that "insanity or mental illness" causes suicides by their loved ones because there could be no other explanatory reason for them not to want life indefinitely so the relative can feel comfort from their presence.   However from the viewpoint of the person who wants to stop their suffering personally, they can feel as rational as the next person, because it can be said also,  that to want to continue suffering without quality of life is itself, irrational.

Philip Nitschke does not assist mentally ill people to commit suicide and takes special care to ensure his conversations convey this without any qualifications.    He is a doctor who keeps people informed to prevent horrendous deaths and provide counseling for those who need "somebody to talk to".... He is a doctor that is compassionate about the choices that people may make for themselves but he does not promote the act of suicide as a means to an end, for anyone.    He also ensures people fully understand the ramifications of assisting a loved one to commit suicide.

It is unfortunate that anyone can not see the value that such an organisation provides for people who feel their families are incapable of facing the reality of their death.     I've lost good people to bad deaths...my mother most of all...If I could have assisted her death to prevent her ongoing suffering I would have done so.....unfortunately I made a wrong choice and have lived with the consequences of feeling that I failed her when she needed me most.   She only lived to 65 not 78....but in a way I can rationalize that she didn't suffer "too long" just five years or so with emphysema, a mouth full of blood and her teeth stained with it as she talked with me.  How does one lean over and wipe their mother's dribble from her chin without making a deal of her situation?  It only took a fortnight for her to die from a heart attack! an easy death by some standards of those in pain.

Please leave books alone from censorship -  Australia is already moving too far down the path of political correctness to pander to the minority who would see us suffer relentlessly because of their personal viewpoint.   Choice for the individual.

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Saturday October 7, 2006:

"Choice" places the article below, Ire over Emergency Exit,  under the "anti" menu because it again makes judgments, even by those who should know better, about an individual's ability to cope without taking into account factors which may explain why a person suffers depression beyond the endurance test of time." 

The terminally and chronically ill may also suffer extreme depression along with a chronic illness which will not kill them any time soon but the physical and mental pain of awaiting "their fate" may be just too intolerable for the individual to persevere with living.

Repeatedly, I've expressed the view that suicide as a choice for dying must be the avenue many feel appropriate when all alternatives have failed.   Beyondblue (Australia's Counseling Government Initiative for Depression,  is a business whose customers are "depressed" but while helping people cope with short term depression with medication and therapy (been there, done that!), for others there is no light at the end of the tunnel and a controlled medicated end of life is surely preferable to the suicide stuff up that make 30 "failures" to each "successful" suicide something to really treat seriously.  

Suicide numbers may well be dropping but addiction to drugs, alcohol, gambling and food have replaced it as a means for people to cope.   Addiction therapy creates yet even more dependency ongoing and generates an employment field all of its own.   It does not cure the originating feeling of absolute despair.   I am so cynical that I believe suicide methods and legislative change are being made so very difficult because many people running business have a vested interest in keeping the patient alive because of the revenue generated by a person's existence.   Compassion is not necessarily everyone's sole consideration when end of life choices are required.

Also repeatedly, I've said that for some people, no amount of talking, counseling, threatening them with Hell and Damnation, If you love me, you'll be strong and live (regardless of your own pain or mental anguish that the living is doing to you) will be sufficient.

Ultimately those who can,  will suicide while those who can't, will continue to suffer.  It is the nature of man to permit a dog euthanasia, yet keep a human being alive with even more serious ramifications for their mental wellbeing.   The knowledge of the existence of a "Peaceful Pill" would eliminate so much stressful depression on many people who need it the most.   In the same way morphine is strictly administered, the same strict guidelines could apply to the "Peaceful Pill".   I remember well the dedication shown by the nurses administering the chemotherapy with double checks at every points with two people in attendance.   Where there is a will, there is also, a Way!...... Loving and compassionate Politicians just have to admit to themselves that there is a genuine and realistic reality that talking alone will not cure one's depression.    Death is a friend to many a tortured soul!
 

Ire over ‘emergency exit’ plan: 4th October 2006, 18:00 WST

Depression groups worldwide have reacted angrily to news that a Swiss euthanasia clinic is pushing for assisted suicide to be available to depressed people "as an emergency exit". Ludwig Minelli, who founded the Dignitas institute in Zurich eight years ago, said a case going before the Swiss supreme court this month involves a Swiss patient suffering from bipolar disorder, also known as manic depression, who wants the right to an assisted suicide. Dignitas is one of the few places in the world to take non-nationals through its assisted suicide program. It has reportedly assisted in the suicides of at least three Australians.

In his speech, given as part of the Liberal Democrats annual conference in Britain this month, Mr Minelli said allowing assisted suicide for the depressed opened up "an emergency exit", whi