The International Seminar on Palliative and Social Care Vs. Euthanasia, organized by the Values and Society Foundation, the Family and Human Dignity Association, the European Federation “One of Us”, the Jérôme Lejeune Foundation and the Political Network for Values, has enjoyed the participation of of numerous national and international experts and the presence of hundreds of people from civil society. Given the imminence of parliamentary debates in some countries, among which is Spain, where there is currently a debate on a law of rights and guarantees of the person before the final process of life, the organizers of this seminar decided that a reflection was essential on this issue and give voice to the part of society that defends life from its beginning to its natural end.
The participants emphasized that euthanasia corrupts the first principle of medicine, which is to act for the good of the sick. And it is concluded that the solutions before the end of life go through treating death as a natural phase in which the patient is helped respecting their dignity as a person, so that in dramatic and terminal situations they eliminate the pain of the patient and not the patient. In this sense, the only possible ethical response is palliative care. Otherwise, “we will see how the consequences of the regulation of euthanasia will end inexorably that others will decide what lives are worth living or not,” said Lourdes Méndez, President of the Family and Human Dignity Association.
Euthanasia is currently legalized since 2002 in the Netherlands, a few months later it was Belgium and in 2009 Luxembourg joined. Colombia regulated it in 2015, and Canada in 2016. Assisted suicide is allowed in Switzerland, in Germany, and in six US states: Oregon, Washington, Montana, Vermont, California, Colorado and Washington D.C. After the experience of these countries where it has reached the extreme, as is the situation in the Netherlands, to allow euthanasia to minors even without parental consent after the age of 16, Lourdes Méndez states: “The regulation of euthanasia becomes a slippery slope, where it begins justifying extreme cases, to end up disposing of the life of another “.
This seminar has shown how in Italy the Assembly has invited member states of the Council of Europe to develop clear and comprehensive regulations that define and regulate conscientious objection with respect to health services and doctors, and that these are capable to guarantee the right to conscientious objection in relation to participation in the procedure in question. And in Colombia, the objective pursued is for society to work for the benefit of the human being and not against it, since, as pointed out by the Colombian senator, Maria del Rosario Guerra, “human life always enjoys value, regardless of its quality”. Guerra has also pointed out that care should integrate the psychological and spiritual aspects of patient care and offer support to the family to adapt to the patient’s illness and their own grief.
For his part, Jacinto Bátiz, Head of the Palliative Care Area of the San Juan de Dios Hospital in Santurtzi and Secretary of the Central Deontological Commission of the Medical Association (OMC), moderator of the table Good palliative care makes the euthanasia? The measures to be contemplated by the law have emphasized that the palliative care of what they are dealing with is not to deliberately precipitate death or unnecessarily prolong the agony, but to help not to suffer while death arrives; requesting that this Congress of Deputies legislate on how to alleviate the suffering of the person without having to eliminate who suffers. Finally, Jaime Mayor Oreja, President of the Values and Society Foundation and the European Federation One Of Us, has concluded that: “Attacks on life and freedom, such as abortion, euthanasia, gender ideology and Bellies of rent, constitute manifestations of a fashion that pretends to replace all our values ”.
Debate on euthanasia in Spain begins to be on the political agenda
