Euthanasia, from Greek eu = good + thanatos = death.

“Nazi legislation and Hitler’s ideas are reemerging in Europe via Dutch euthanasia laws and the debate on how to kill ill children.” … Carlo Giovanardi. Italian Parliamentary Affairs minister, March 2006.

http://www.euthanasia.com/page7.html

An Italian man who had been bed-ridden for a very long time, without the least possiility of recovering, has died presumably helped by a Doctor. It is the latest ocurrence of a Euthanasia case which has raised again the dilemma of assisted death.

If I were a person in the same position as this Italian I would do the same thing, I would clamour for death and the termination of an anguished process with no hopeful remedy even in the far horizon.

Euthanasia always brings up dissidence on the part of Churches whose opinion has always been contrary to any assisted death, but I wonder whether they are not contradicting themselves when they preach mercy. Because Euthanasia properly administered is not but a case of mercy towards a person whose mental and physical feelings are unbearably and irremediably excruciating. 

There have been international forums which have convened to debate the issue, and so far nothing has come out of it. No conclusions positive to Euthanasia have come out of these forums and people keep suffering the world around because laws usually do not permit it. The Netherlands has been the first country in Europe to legalise Euthanasia and consequently The Netherlands has been the object of harsh criticism by the Catholic Church, as have been Belgium, Switzerland and France for having legalised it, true that all under diverse premises.

The Council of Europe’s Human Rights Body has condemned Euthanasia and I wonder which this Body is defending: Ethical principles or religious principles, the latter being something I very much doubt really exists. Because ethics is at the core of all human rights and a human being has the perfect right to dispose of his/her life in those cases where her/his existence reaches extreme suffering.

There is another point to be taken into account in Euthanasia and that is that the problem arises because it is “assisted”, someone else other than the dying person must contribute to her/his death. And that is where ethics mainly intervenes. The Law should provide for  incontrovertible reasons to be wielded to justify the assisted death, but it should be left crystal clear that the responsibility for the action lies exclusively on the dying person who has so determined that his/her life be extinguished.

I wonder what  the reaction would be of those persons who so adamantly condemn Euthanasia if they were the protagonists of the case: Would they stick to those  principles or would they have mercy on themselves?.

Have they ever asked themselves this question?