Euthanasia

What is Euthanasia?

What is Euthanasia?

• Gk origins. eu = "well", thanatos = "death": "well death”
• Euthanasia is the painless way of killing a patient whose suffering from an incurable disease or irreversible coma. (Oxford Dictionaries, n.d.)

Standpoints

Medical Standpoint

Medical Standpoint

• Euthanasia is the administration of a lethal agent by another person to a patient for the purpose of relieving the patient’s intolerable and incurable suffering.
• There is what we call medical ethics and by virtue of profession, physicians must save lives in all ways possible.

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• 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.

Opposing Views

Hemlock Society

• This organization seeks to change certain laws regarding suicide. We want the government to decriminalize the actions taken by physicians in the assisted suicides of terminally ill patients.
• Belief that if a patient wants to end their suffering then they should be assisted, through drug overdose without any lawsuit against the physician who performed the act. (Derek Humphrey)

Catholic Standpoint

Catholic social teachings

• Gaudium et spes "The Church in the Modern World" (1965)
• Evangelium Vitae "The Gospel of Life" (1995)

Views according to

• Address of Pope Francis to the Association of Italian Catholic Doctors, November, 2014.
• Homily of St. John Paul II, 1995
• CBCP (Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines) Statements

"Whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia, or willful self-destruction, whatever violates the integrity of the human person, attempts to coerce the will itself; whatever insults human dignity, where people are treated as mere instruments of gain rather than as free and responsible persons; all these things and others like them are infamies indeed." (Gaudium et spes, 27)

"They poison human society, but they do more harm to those who practice them than those who suffer from the injury. Moreover, they are supreme dishonor to the Creator." (Gaudium et spes, 27)

"We must begin with a commitment never to intentionally kill, or collude in the killing, of any innocent human life, no matter how broken, unformed, disabled or desperate that life may seem. In other words, the choice of certain ways of acting is always and radically incompatible with the love of God and the dignity of the human person created in His image." (Evangelium Vitae, 20)

True "compassion" leads to sharing another's pain; it does not kill the person whose suffering we cannot bear. Moreover, the act of euthanasia appears all the more perverse if it is carried out by those, like relatives, who are supposed to treat a family member with patience and love, or by those, such as doctors, who by virtue of their specific profession are supposed to care for the sick person even in the most painful terminal stages. (Evangelium Vitae, 65)

Euthanasia has become a preeminent threat to human dignity because they directly attack life itself, the most fundamental human good and the condition for all others. They are committed against those who are weakest and most defenseless, those who are genuinely "the poorest of the poor. (Homily of John Paul II, 1995)

A “False sense of compassion” (to think of euthanasia as an act of dignity.) “This is playing with life, Beware, because this is a sin against the creator, against God the creator.” (Address of Pope Francis to the Association of Italian Catholic Doctors, November, 2014.)

CBCP'S Stand

• Those whose lives are diminished or weakened deserve special respect. Sick or handicapped persons should be helped to lead lives as normal as possible. Whatever its motives and means, direct euthanasia consists in putting an end to the lives of handicapped, sick, or dying persons. It is morally unacceptable. Thus an act or omission which, of itself or by intention, causes death in order to eliminate suffering constitutes a murder gravely contrary to the dignity of the human person and to the respect due to the living God, his Creator. The error of judgment into which one can fall in good faith does not change the nature of this murderous act, which must always be forbidden and excluded.
• Whatever its motives and means, direct euthanasia consists in putting an end to the lives of handicapped, sick, or dying persons. It is morally unacceptable. Thus an act or omission which, of itself or by intention, causes death in order to eliminate suffering constitutes a murder gravely contrary to the dignity of the human person and to the respect due to the living God, his Creator. The error of judgment into which one can fall in good faith does not change the nature of this murderous act, which must always be forbidden and excluded.

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• Thus an act or omission which, of itself or by intention, causes death in order to eliminate suffering constitutes a murder gravely contrary to the dignity of the human person and to the respect due to the living God, his Creator. The error of judgment into which one can fall in good faith does not change the nature of this murderous act, which must always be forbidden and excluded.
• The error of judgment into which one can fall in good faith does not change the nature of this murderous act, which must always be forbidden and excluded.

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