Article originally published at: https://www.acistampa.com/story/33397/i-vescovi-di-francia-contro-il-suicidio-assistenza-la-vita-non-si-cura-dando-la-morte
After the right to abortion, comes the right to assisted suicide. In France, debate has begun on a bill defining euthanasia as a right , in an increasingly headlong slide toward a “culture of death.” And, as has already happened with the abortion debate, the French bishops are forcefully taking the field, with a public statement, a “tribune ” in which they emphasize that “life is not cured by inflicting death .”
The text was published on January 15th and represents one of the most advanced responses to the issue of euthanasia. It addresses the issue delicately, and with “deep respect for those facing the end of life,” if only because “the Church has a long history of accompanying the sick and people with disabilities, caregivers, healthcare workers, and hospital and nursing home chaplains.”
It is a Church that listens to anguish, and therefore understands the plight of those who experience it. The bishops note that, for over twenty-five years, “France has made a unique and precious choice: to reject both unreasonable aggressive treatments and induced death, affirming both the right not to suffer and the duty to accompany life to the end.”
There is, the text states, a coherent and recognized “French approach” which is “ based on the development of a culture of palliative care, on the consideration of the patient’s wishes, on advance directives and on the possibility of deep and continuous sedation, not to cause death but to relieve pain”.
Because, the bishops add, ” palliative care is the only truly effective response to the distressing situations of end-of-life care ,” and for this reason the bill providing equal access to this care has the bishops’ approval, because “many healthcare workers engaged in this approach attest that considering the terminally ill or the dying in their physical, but also psychological, relational and, where applicable, spiritual dimensions, as offered by palliative care, almost always leads to the disappearance of requests for death among the terminally ill.”
The bishops emphasize that ” behind the request for death, there is often a request to live,” and for this reason they are unable to understand the new law, given that the problem is not so much the lack of euthanasia, but rather the fact that “the current law is not sufficiently enforced and access to palliative care remains highly unequal throughout the country. Even today, nearly a quarter of the need for palliative care remains unmet.”
According to the French Episcopal Conference, legalizing euthanasia “would profoundly change the nature of the social contract,” denouncing words that “tend to obscure” other concepts, since “presenting euthanasia and assisted suicide as acts of care seriously blurs ethical boundaries. Words are distorted from their true meaning to better numb consciences: this obfuscation is never neutral. Life is not cured by taking a life.”
The bishops reject ” the exploitation of essential concepts such as dignity, freedom, and fraternity,” and reiterate that “the dignity of a human being does not vary based on his or her state of health, autonomy, or social usefulness; it is inherent in his or her humanity, to the very end. It is inalienable.”
Furthermore, the bishops of France note that “ freedom cannot be considered in the abstract”, since “the freedom of each individual must also be considered in its relational dimension: we are interdependent and the choices of some influence others”, and therefore “attributing the burden of the choice of death to a patient, to a family or to a medical team trained to cure, not to kill, means denying the mystery of communion that binds us to each other”.
But the French bishops also denounce the invocation of the “law of fraternity” when it comes to causing death, because fraternity “does not consist in hastening the death of those who suffer or in forcing those who care for someone to cause it, but in never abandoning those who are experiencing these difficult and painful moments. Fraternity calls us to definitively reject the temptation to take life and, at the same time , to commit ourselves with determination to effectively develop palliative care throughout the country, strengthening the training of healthcare workers, supporting those who care for them, combating isolation, and recognizing that vulnerability is part of the human condition.”
The bishops urge political leaders to consider the full implications of the ongoing debate, emphasizing that they were not motivated by a “primarily and exclusively religious” motivation, but rather want to give voice to ” the profound concern expressed by so many patients, people with disabilities, their families, and their caregivers,” since “with this proposed law, the latter would once again find themselves on the front lines and forced to take actions contrary to the ethics of care and the pact of trust that binds them to patients and their families or loved ones. There is a significant risk of undermining the relationship of trust between caregivers, patients, and their immediate circle .”
It is a crucial vote, the prelates add, because it confronts the very meaning of life, suffering, and death . The bishops, moreover, state it clearly: “We believe that a society grows not when it offers death as a solution, but when it mobilizes to support vulnerability and protect life, until the end. The path is demanding, certainly, but it is the only truly human, dignified, and fraternal one .”