Skip to content
The Catholic Leader
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
The Catholic Leader
No Result
View All Result
Home Features

No to euthanasia – yes to genuine care

byStaff writers
14 November 2010
Reading Time: 4 mins read
AA
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Today is Sanctity of Life Sunday in Brisbane archdiocese. Queensland Bioethics Centre director RAY CAMPBELL writes on euthanasia as he reflects on the theme of the day

IT is a shame that so much time, money and energy is being wasted to promote euthanasia, when what we really need are people agitating for better care for the terminally ill, aged, and those with disability.

As a member of the Greens in NSW indicates her intention to introduce a Bill to allow Physician Assisted Suicide (PAS), St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney has announced that it has to cut its intake of in-patient palliative care beds due to lack of funding.

A spokesperson for Palliative Care Queensland recently told me that there has been no increase in funding for palliative care in Queensland for 10 years.

We now have the ability to offer terminally ill people care in their homes, care in hospital beds, and care in hospices. All three are needed, all three can offer people the care they require when they are dying, but all three are hopelessly underfunded.

A similar problem exists with aged care, where high-care beds are underfunded by the government. Many involved with aged care claim that the funding arrangements have to change, or our aged care could simply collapse.

These are the real issues we should be discussing, not measures which simply seek to kill off the patient.

That is why the focus for this year’s Sanctity of Life Sunday in Brisbane archdiocese is care for the terminally ill, the elderly, the frail, those with disability, the vulnerable.

It is not simply a matter of saying “no” to euthanasia (and assisted suicide), but saying yes to proper care for those in need. We need to have a good look at where we are spending our health-care dollar.

One commentator refers to those promoting assisted suicide as “a strident consumerist elite … playing on fears of death and dying”. (Cristina Odone, England)
There is a push for euthanasia going on in just about every state of Australia, although there is no bill proposed for the Queensland Parliament. Federally, the Greens are introducing a bill to overturn the legislation which prevents the Northern Territory and the ACT from legalising euthanasia.

Related Stories

Why you should go on a pilgrimage — more than once

Celebration marks Sister Angela Mary’s 75 years’ service to Mater and Queensland

Confraternity Carnival ready for a full return in Mackay next week

There is some confusion over terminology in the euthanasia debate. Euthanasia involves an act or omission with the intention of hastening a person’s death in order to relieve their suffering. It involves a lethal act (or omission) by someone other than the patient/victim.

Assisted suicide refers to giving someone the means (for example, a drug) whereby the person may kill themselves. The “assistance” might even go as far as putting the drug into a drip which the patient then turns on.

Both are wrong, and the legalisation of either undermines the good of life and society.

Neither are the same as discontinuing overly burdensome treatment nor the administering of appropriate drugs to relieve and prevent pain – both of which are morally acceptable and part of good palliative care.

Even some people who are normally pro-life might accept the argument that if someone wants to kill themselves they should be free to do so, and given assistance if needed. It does not really affect other people.

But this argument is superficial. Legalising euthanasia (including assisted suicide) affects everyone. It necessarily undermines the protection of the life of the most vulnerable.

A Select Committee of the House of Lords in England considered the legalisation of euthanasia. Although the majority of the members had been in favour of euthanasia, after investigating the matter the committee concluded that permitting euthanasia would undermine the protection of all, and that in the interest of society as a whole, euthanasia should remain illegal.

Some claim that assisted suicide might avoid the pitfalls of legalising euthanasia. But it cannot.

If assisted suicide is legal the vulnerable will be made to feel as if they should avail themselves of it.

Furthermore, if they do not avail themselves of it, it will be easy for others, who have judged that their lives are not worth living, to do it for them under the guise of assisted suicide.

If the law says there are lives that can be legally disposed of, the temptation will be for relatives, hard pressed public hospitals and cash-strapped institutions to see the elderly and the frail as a burden to be shed, not people to be cared for.

The legalising of euthanasia undermines the patient-doctor relationship and the patient’s trust in health-care institutions.

A doctor from the Netherlands reported how people were travelling to Germany for hospital treatment because they were afraid to go to hospital in the Netherlands.

In the Netherlands euthanasia has moved from “voluntary” to “non-voluntary” (that is, the patient did not request it) and probably involuntary.

Amongst the groups advocating against the legalisation of euthanasia and assisted suicide have been advocacy groups for those with disability.

People with disability already experience all kinds of discrimination in our society.

An story in the journal Disability and Health Journal commented: “The deadly impact of legalising assisted suicide would fall hardest, whether directly or indirectly, on socially and economically disadvantaged people who have less access to medical resources and who already find themselves discriminated against by the health-care system.”

Once again the House of Lords Committee put it well: “the message which society sends to vulnerable and disadvantaged people should not, however obliquely, encourage them to seek death, but should assure them of our care and support in life”.

Of course it is not just the effect that legalising euthanasia has on all people that makes it morally wrong.

Even voluntary, “self-administered” euthanasia is an act against proper love of self, of neighbour and of God.
So we return to the theme of this year’s Sanctity of Life Sunday.

Let us not simply speak out against euthanasia, which is the ultimate abandonment of another. Let us also speak out for better access to good palliative care and services for all those in need.

The real question is not whether the lives of the suffering and terminally ill are worthwhile, but but whether we are the kind of persons who will care for them without doubting their worth?

 

ShareTweet
Previous Post

Special guests visit Burleigh

Next Post

Crisis point

Staff writers

Related Posts

Spirituality

Why you should go on a pilgrimage — more than once

25 June 2022
Celebration marks Sister Angela Mary’s 75 years’ service to Mater and Queensland
QLD

Celebration marks Sister Angela Mary’s 75 years’ service to Mater and Queensland

25 June 2022
QLD

Confraternity Carnival ready for a full return in Mackay next week

24 June 2022
Next Post

Crisis point

Survey shows changing trends in religious life

Canonisation publicity helping faith to grow

Popular News

  • Celebration marks Sister Angela Mary’s 75 years’ service to Mater and Queensland

    Celebration marks Sister Angela Mary’s 75 years’ service to Mater and Queensland

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Confraternity Carnival ready for a full return in Mackay next week

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Three Queensland deacons preparing for priestly ordinations in the next week

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Parents of young mother considered for sainthood share powerful testimony at World Meeting of Families

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Bishop Barron is moving to Minnesota and hopes to be a ‘good spiritual father’ to his new flock

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
Search our job finder
No Result
View All Result

Latest News

Spirituality

Why you should go on a pilgrimage — more than once

by Guest Contributor
25 June 2022
0

SO many significant moments in my spiritual life are tied to sights, smells, sounds and emotions felt...

Celebration marks Sister Angela Mary’s 75 years’ service to Mater and Queensland

Celebration marks Sister Angela Mary’s 75 years’ service to Mater and Queensland

25 June 2022

Confraternity Carnival ready for a full return in Mackay next week

24 June 2022
Parents of young mother considered for sainthood share powerful testimony at World Meeting of Families

Parents of young mother considered for sainthood share powerful testimony at World Meeting of Families

24 June 2022
Three Queensland deacons preparing for priestly ordinations in the next week

Three Queensland deacons preparing for priestly ordinations in the next week

23 June 2022

Never miss a story. Sign up to the Weekly Round-Up
eNewsletter now to receive headlines directly in your email.

Sign up to eNews
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Contact
  • Contribute
  • Jobs
  • Subscribe

The Catholic Leader is an Australian award-winning Catholic newspaper that has been published by the Archdiocese of Brisbane since 1929. Our journalism seeks to provide a full, accurate and balanced Catholic perspective of local, national and international news while upholding the dignity of the human person.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader
Accessibility Information | Privacy Policy | Archdiocese of Brisbane

The Catholic Leader acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the First Peoples of this country and especially acknowledge the traditional owners on whose lands we live and work throughout the Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader

0
    0
    Your Cart
    Your cart is emptyChoose another Subscription
    Continue Shopping