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Compassion Misplaced

If you are a person who is terminally ill, and experiencing so much agony and suffering, there would be doctors in the world today who will ask you to consider Euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide.

Euthanasia is a term that evolved from Greek words eu meaning ‘well’ or ‘good’ + thanatos meaning ‘death’. As pointed out by the Christian community, the origin of the term or even the more recently used expression ‘Mercy Killing’, already in itself, sounds wrong.

In the view of the Church, the practice of assisted suicide skews the definition of mercy and attempts to justify the act of killing. Although some people see it as a form of help, the Church enlightens us by saying that this may be an example of how people can take advantage of other people’s grief. This so-called dignified death or act of compassion has been a topic that Christians have strongly opposed, believing that the act is morally unacceptable. The Church’s stance is heavily supported by moral and ethical arguments, which are used to pinpoint the very reason why people should abhor mercy killing. 

Euthanasia, also called physician-assisted suicide, was conceptualized and framed in such a way that, when a patient suffers from a terminal, painful, debilitating illness, the physician may provide the necessary means and/or information to enable the patient to perform a life-ending act. (Brazier) However, people must know that euthanasia has always had a more disturbing connotation, following a “Life unworthy of life” ideology. In Nazi Germany, the Nazi Euthanasia Program, also called ‘T4 Program’ was an effort by the Nazis aimed at executing people who had mental and physical disabilities, considering their conditions as birth defects, thus, a financial burden that must be “cleansed” from society.

Nazi propaganda composite photograph showing developmentally disabled German children. The caption reads, “The National Socialist State in the future will prevent people whose lives are not worth living from being born,” Circa 1933-1943. Photo credit: USHMM #62928 Source:  Harriet & Kenneth Kupferberg Holocaust Center. “The Concentration Camps: Inside the Nazi System of Incarceration and Genocide” URL: khc.qcc.cuny.edu/camps/part-2a-murder-of-children-disabled/

This form of killing of patients was also done by physicians who assumed they had the authority to end their patients’ lives and it had been a practice before the time of Hipprocrates.

A Roman bust of the ancient Greek physician, Hippocrates, copied from a Greek original Source: Hippocrates (Encyclopædia Britannica published by Encyclopædia Britannica) URL: www.britannica.com/biography/Hippocrates#/media/1/266627/11615 accessed March 18, 2021.

Among the countries in the world, Australia was the first State to introduce a voluntary euthanasia law in 1995. Although the law was overturned after a few years, states in America and Europe would end up adopting the legislation shortly after. Inevitably, organizations against the immoral policy would begin to take action to prevent assisted suicide from pushing through as a law. Most Christians spared no effort in protesting against the legalization of mercy killing, some of them from the Catholic Church’s representatives in Australia. Archbishop Mark Coleridge, from the archdiocese in Brisbane, had attempted to explain the rationale behind the strong opposition of the Catholic Church by saying, “For the Catholic Church, life is a great gift. A gift from God who is life. Life is a blessing; a blessing from the God who is the source of all life. Because of this sense of life as gift and blessing, the Church is deeply committed, and in the most positive and joyful way, to the protection of life from the moment of conception to the moment of natural death.”

The Church leader provides a simple, but powerful logic working behind the dissent of the Church. The message is clear to who those who listen: Life is a favor from God and only through this standard shall man measure the quality of life.

Bishop Anthony Fisher, Bishop of Parramatta, who has degrees in Law and History, and holds an Oxford University doctorate in Bioethics, authored a book entitled, “Catholic Bioethics for a New Millennium,” and he is well-known for forcibly fighting against the legislation of Euthanasia in the world.

The Bishop, as seen in the video interview, persistently explains how a dying patient or the devastated family member can be misguided by the concept of Euthanasia, and be influenced to misplace compassion. The supporters of Mercy Killing fail to recognize how the sick and dying may no longer see the point of living. The Church obviously realizes that the sense of life as gift and blessing is not shared by all and for that reason, it is resolute in teaching that all life has purpose, and continuously pours out resources in order to get the message across all societies. Most often, the reason underlying the push for voluntary euthanasia is the fear of losing control of one’s life. Another big factor would be that more often than not, terminally ill people suffer from recognized or unrecognized depression, causing people to desire to end their own life. Therefore, the Church reminds all people, as beings capable of love, that we must guarantee that our loved ones who are suffering are spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically supported.

The advocates of euthanasia believe that they are allowing an act of dignity and compassion for those who consider themselves as burden because of their sickness, but are unaware of the darker and more evil objects at work in this immoral act. The Church wants to shed light on the real problem and assist the people to find where they must truly place their sympathy.

We must acknowledge that life, even at its weakest and most diminished point, remains a gift and a blessing. As Christians, will help us realize that the burden is not the patient, but the pain. Pain is the disease that plagues the soul and body, and it is the sickness which must be treated.

Sources:

- The Concentration Camps: Inside the Nazi System of Incarceration and Genocide. Harriet & Kenneth Kupferberg Holocaust Center. URL: khc.qcc.cuny.edu/camps/part-2a-murder-of-children-disabled/ Accessed 17 March 2021.

- Brazier, Yvette. “What are euthanasia and assisted suicide?” Medical News Today, 17 December 2018, www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/182951 Accessed 17 March 2021

- Encyclopædia Britannica published by Encyclopædia Britannica. URL: www.britannica.com/biography/Hippocrates#/media/1/266627/11615 Accessed 18 March 2021.

- ABC News (Australia). (2011, November 28). Christian churches remain opposed to assisted dying [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJvEK89Wj7c Accessed 18 March 2021