Calderón, María Eugenia

THE CHURCH, EUTHANASIA and ASSISTED SUICIDE

Euthanasia also known as “mercy killing” and assisted suicide are worldwide

controversial issues. According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, the word

euthanasia comes from Greek, meaning easy death (eu: easy, thanatos: death).

Euthanasia means to end the life of a person who is terminally ill or suffering from

severe pain, in a deliberate way. At the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)

webpage, in the section Ethics guides, under the title of Forms of Euthanasia,

Religions and Death? (2009), different types of euthanasia are described, such as

indirect, active, passive, voluntary, involuntary and non voluntary. On the other

hand, assisted suicide is usually performed with the help of a health professional;

that is why; it is usually called Physician Assisted Suicide (or PAS).

The main controversy is over the different opinions on whether it is the sick

patient’s decision or if it is a legal, ethical or religious issue to be considered by a

third party. In order to practice assisted suicide in a country where it is legal, many

factors should be present, such as the moral and religious beliefs of the patient and

the physician or the patient’s family and the physician, as well as the legislation of

the country where it is going to be carried out. At present, in countries where

euthanasia is not legalized yet, it is very difficult to obtain legal permission to

practice it. As regards the ethical field, it is the physician’s responsibility to respect

and to be loyal to the Hippocratic Oath, which they swore to respect the moral

principles of their medical profession. Most of the times, these principles overlap

with euthanasia’s practices, as physicians are faced with a dilemma on whether to

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respect the patient’s decisions or to abide by the principles of medical ethics, which

support life prolongation. Daniel Sokol mentions the controversial issue on the

Hippocratic Oath, in his online article The ethics of assisted suicide (2006),

“Another common argument about PAS, especially amongst doctors, is that it

violates the Hippocratic dictum: 'first, do no harm'(…) The oath is now out of date

(…) It is therefore wrong slavishly to revere - as some still do - the Hippocratic

Oath. If taken literally, the only way doctors could 'do no harm' would be by

declining to treat all patients. Even simple medical procedures, such as taking a

blood sample or injecting a local anaesthetic, entail some risks to the patient. Many

procedures and treatments require doctors to inflict harm in order to bring about

some good.

In the legal field, according to the article Law and Legal Issues, Laws and

Regulations, Euthanasia, in what countries is euthanasia legal? (2009), assisted

suicide is penalized in most parts of the world, such as Australia, Canada,

Colombia, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Russia, Spain and United Kingdom. However,

it is legal or being considered to be legalized in some other countries such as

Albania, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Netherlands and in the

states of Oregon, Washington and Montana in the United States. New Hampshire is

currently considering a bill on assisted suicide; while Switzerland does not punish

doctors who perform euthanasia. On the other hand, active euthanasia, commonly

referred simply as euthanasia, is only legal in: the Netherlands and Belgium.

In the social field, many organizations, which of course are not members of the

Roman Catholic religion, promote assisted suicide as well as euthanasia. Some of

those organizations are listed in the article Organizations for euthanasia (2009),

Calderón, María Eugenia

such as: Dignitas, ERGO and The Death with Dignity National Center (DDNC).

These pro-euthanasia groups state that it is an act of mercy and that the patient has

the right to decide on his/her own life or death. On the other hand, there are other

groups which strictly oppose euthanasia and/or assisted suicide, claiming that these

practices are illegally and immorally viewed as “suicide” or “murder”. Such groups

supporting the right to live are listed in the article Organizations against euthanasia

(2009): Citizens United Resisting Euthanasia (CURE), The Association for Persons

with Severe Handicaps (TASH)1 and Suicide Prevention International (SPI).

Religions play a very important role in ethics and people’s decision-making,

especially regarding to the ending or prolonging of human life. For Roman

Catholicism, which is the world’s dominant religion, euthanasia and PAS are not

considered acts of mercy but mortal sins. So, I will focus my research paper on

whether religions, in this case Roman Catholic faith, dominate people’s minds and

actions. It seems that strong religion beliefs obstruct law making and reformation

when it comes to euthanasia and assisted suicide.

As I mentioned above, there are many aspects that can be analyzed and

discussed within this topic as opinions about euthanasia and PAS varies from

country to country as well as from individual to individual. However, I am going to

deal with legal and ethical aspects, more specifically religious aspects.

My paper will be divided in two main sections. The first section will lay out a

brief theoretical and legal framework of euthanasia and assisted suicide. The second

1 The name was changed to The Association for Persons with Severe Handicaps in 1983 but the acronym, TASH, continued to be used. the acronym was maintained because it was widely recognized but the full name of the organization is no longer used as it didn't reflect current values and directions.

(http://www.tash.org/WWA/WWA_what_acronym.html)

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Calderón, María Eugenia

section will consist of an analysis of different religious perspectives, especially the

Roman Catholic considerations on euthanasia and assisted suicide, as well as The

Church’s points of view against these practices being legal. To conduct my

research, I will consult material about both ethical and religious issues. In order to

offer a wider panorama of ideas and thoughts about the topic different

classifications I will take into account different author´s perspectives. To develop

my research paper, I will gather and consult some books, articles and papers, most

of them taken from the Internet.

In the legal field, it is important to mention that since the twentieth century,

many States of The United States allow "living wills," surrogate health care decision

making, and the withdrawal or refusal of life sustaining medical treatment- i.e. a

kind of a mixture of voluntary, passive and active euthanasia. The state of Oregon

legalized assisted suicide in 1998; then The Netherlands followed the example in

2000, and two years later Belgium legalized it too. In 2008 the U.S. state of

Washington legalized assisted suicide. In England, Wales as well as in Canada,

however, assisted suicide continues to be penalized and there is a possibility of

imprisonment for anybody assisting suicide, although suicide itself is not a crime.

Only four European countries today openly and legally authorize assisted dying of

terminal patients at their request, these are Switzerland, Belgium, The Netherlands,

and Luxembourg. Belgium and the Netherlands permit voluntary euthanasia, but

Switzerland bans death by injection. In Mexico, in 2008, the Mexican Senate voted

in favor of legalizing passive euthanasia allowing doctors to withdraw life-

sustaining medication from patients but not administering poisons. These are just a

few current legal issues around the world taken from the British Broadcasting

Calderón, María Eugenia

Corporation on line article Tread carefully when you help to die. Assisted suicide

laws around the world (2005).

Referring to the historical framework, I found very interesting the fact that the

Church, in times when many countries adopted Christianity, openly practiced

executions. People were executed for wrong doing or for not agreeing with the

Church’s principles; what is more, people’s opinion on whether what the Church did

was not considered. The Church‘s actions were unquestioned. At that time, the

Church dominated almost every aspect of civil and political life. Being the

ecclesiastical members the only ones who were educated and consequently the ones

who taught people what they considered was right, moral and legal. So, if we take

this into account, why is it immoral nowadays to practiced euthanasia or PAS? Why

does the Church now value the sanctity of human life and why The Church did not

do it in the past?

It is necessary to make a distinction among the different types of euthanasia.

In his book Final Exit (2002), Derek Humphry states that the option or the right to

choose to die comes in four ways: Passive euthanasia: popularly known as “pulling

the plug,”2 it is the disconnection of medical life-support equipment without which

you cannot live. For Humpry (2002), “Self-deliverance” means taking your own life

to escape the suffering, which most people refer as voluntary euthanasia (…)

assisted suicide is when you get lethal drugs from somebody else, usually a

physician, and swallow them to cause your death. Active euthanasia occurs when

death is brought about by a physician’s injection of lethal drugs. (1, pp.1, 2)

2 In this case, death is brought about by omission, by withdrawing or withholding treatment in order to let the person die.

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In the religious field, most religious groups, nowadays, oppose and/or forbid

euthanasia and assisted suicide. Being the Roman Catholic Church the most active

organization opposing euthanasia.

Religious people often refer to the sanctity of life, or say that human life is

sacred. They state that God gives people life, so only God has the right to take it

away. According to the on line article Ethic guides, Religion and euthanasia,

Religious views on euthanasia, (2009), retrieved from the British Broadcasting

Corporation web page, Most Buddhists are against involuntary euthanasia and the

teachings of the Buddha do not explicitly deal with it. Most Hindus would say that a

doctor should not accept a patient's request for euthanasia since this will cause the

soul and body to be separated at an unnatural time. The result will damage the

karma of both doctor and patient. Other Hindus believe that euthanasia cannot be

allowed because it breaches the teaching of “ahimsa” (doing no harm). However,

some Hindus say that by helping to end a painful life a person is performing a good

deed and so fulfilling their moral obligations. Muslims are against euthanasia, they

believe that all human life is sacred because it is given by Allah, and that Allah

chooses how long each person will live.

Some churches also emphasize the importance of not interfering with the natural

process of death. In the article Ethic Guides, Religion and euthanasia, Religious

views on euthanasia (2009), mentions the opinion of the Roman Catholic Church

and states the following: The Roman Catholic Church regards euthanasia as morally

wrong. It has always taught the absolute and unchanging value of the commandment

"You shall not kill." The church states that “nothing and no one can in any way

permit the killing of an innocent human being, whether a fetus or an embryo, an

Calderón, María Eugenia

infant or an adult, an old person, or one suffering from an incurable disease, or a

person who is dying.

Friar Frank A. Pavone, International Director from the organization

Priests for Life, in his online article Freedom to die? (2009), states that “we do

not possess a ‘right to die.’” A right is a moral claim...The "right to life" is

based on the fact that life is a gift which we do not possess as a piece of

property (which we can purchase or sell or give away or destroy at will), but

rather an inviolable right. It cannot be taken away by another or by the person

him/herself. The "right to die" is based…on the idea of life as a "thing we

possess" and may be discarded when it no longer meets our satisfaction”… He

strongly opposes euthanasia stating that, “any act or omission which causes, or

is intended to cause death, in order to remove a person from suffering is no

permitted and shall never be.” “A Christian,” according to Pavone, “knows

that suffering is not meaningless. It was by his suffering and cross that Christ

redeemed the world.” (¶ 3)

In the Encyclical in the Evangelium Vitae3 (1995), the Pope John Paul II

expresses the Catholic Church’s point of view regarding the value and

inviolability of human life and addresses different issues, among others,

euthanasia. The third passage of the encyclical deals with euthanasia, here the

Pope voices his opinion, “.... euthanasia is a grave violation of the law of

God, since it is the deliberate and morally unacceptable killing of a human

person. This doctrine is based upon the natural law and upon the written word

of God, is transmitted by the Church's Tradition and taught by the ordinary

3 Latin: The Gospel of Life

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and universal Magisterium…” In the article Ethic Guides, Religion and

euthanasia, Religious views on euthanasia, Roman Catholic view (2009), Pope

John Paul´s point of view is cited: “Pope John Paul II has spoken out against

what he calls a 'culture of death' in modern society, and said that human

beings should always prefer the way of life to the way of death. The church

regards any law permitting euthanasia as an intrinsically unjust law”.

I strongly disagree with the Roman Catholic Church. First of all I am not a

follower of the Roman Catholic Church and not of any other religious group. I

believe in God as a superior self who guides us in the path of our lives, but not as

the creator of the world. If there is a God, I want to believe that God would prefer

what is best for us. I cannot consider the idea of a God that allows His people to

suffer either physically or emotionally. My argument against Roman Catholics is the

following, if God was the creator of the world and we, as human beings, were also

part of His creation, then I suppose everything we think or do belongs to God. In

this way, we should not be condemned by the Roman Catholic Church for our

thoughts or actions; in the end, the Church was created and is managed by people

who are just like us, having good and bad thoughts and intentions. So, who are they

to impose punishment on others? Is it God’s will to punish us for actions and

thoughts that are part of our nature as human beings? I do not think so. I think God

wants our betterment, i.e. He wants us to change, improve and lead the best kind of

life we can, and have also a peaceful and dignifying kind of death. As Robert Young

states in his book Medically assisted death (2007), “those opposed to the legislation

of medically assisted death often contend that its legislation would violate the

requirement to respect the sanctity of human life and that this constitutes a decisive

Calderón, María Eugenia

reason against legislation”.(5, pp.61). I consider that as long as the Church

continues to uphold strong principles on life sanctity, and people continue to believe

in them, the issue of whether to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide will remain

improbable as well as controversial.

REFERENCES

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Calderón, María Eugenia

Daniel Sokol. The ethics of assisted suicide. Abstract retrieved May 11, 2006, from

BBC News, Health section,

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4759499.stm

Ethic Guides. Forms of euthanasia. Abstract retrieved November 20, 2009, from

the British Broadcasting Corporation [BBC]. No author

http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/euthanasia/overview/forms.shtml

Ethic Guides, Religion and euthanasia, Religious views on euthanasia. Abstract

retrieved November 20, 2009, from the British Broadcasting

Corporation [BBC]. No author

http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/euthanasia/religion/religion.shtml

Ethic Guides, Religion and euthanasia, Religious views on euthanasia, Roman

Catholic view, Abstract retrieved November 20, 2009, from the British

Broadcasting Corporation [BBC]. No author

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/christianethics/

euthanasia_1.shtml#h2

Humphry, D. Final exit. The practices of self-deliverance and assisted suicide for

the dying. 2002. New York, United States: Dell Publishing.

Ioannes Paulus PP. II. Evangelium Vitae. 1995. You shall not kill. "It is I who

bring both death and life" (Dt 32:39): the tragedy of euthanasia (chap.

3, § 65, ¶ 7). Abstract retrieved July 2, 2009, from

http://www.vatican.va/edocs/ENG0141/__PR.HTM

Calderón, María Eugenia

Law and legal issues, laws and regulations, in what countries is euthanasia legal?,

Abstract retrieved June 27, 2009, from Answers Corporation, Wiki

Answers. No author

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/In_what_countries_is_euthanasia_legal

Organizations against euthanasia. Abstract retrieved July 2, 2009, from

euthanasia.com

No author http://www.euthanasia.com/page10.html

Organizations for euthanasia. Abstract retrieved July 2, 2009, from

euthanasia.com

No author http://www.euthanasia.com/page10.html

Pavone F. (n.d.). Freedom to die? Abstract retrieved July 2, 2009, from Priests for

life organization, http://www.priestsforlife.org/euthrefl.html

Religions and death. Abstract retrieved November 20, 2009, from the British

Broadcasting Corporation [BBC]. No author

http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/euthanasia/religion/religion.shtml

Tread carefully when you help to die. Assisted suicide laws around the world.

(March 01, 2005). In D. Humprey (Ed.), World-right-to-die newsletter

(#41, June 2002). Abstract retrieved June 27, 2009, from webpage of the

Euthanasia Research & Guidance Organization [ERGO]. No author.

http://www.assistedsuicide.org/suicide_laws.html

Young, R. Medically assisted death. 2007. New York, United States: Cambridge

University.

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