In a statement issued on 23 January, Msgr. Klaus Küng warned of the danger of legalizing euthanasia. On behalf of the Austrian Episcopal Conference, Küng urged the Austrian representatives in the Council of Europe to act as the mouthpieces of “clear positions, ethically founded on the fundamental rights of the person”. The bishop emphasised that the wish to die is in many cases “simply an expression of despair”, a kind of “appeal for help”. “The human response” in these cases, he declared, should consist of “devotion”, and a therapy of grief and reassurance. Stressing the progress made in the field of palliative treatment, he said he was “very pleased” by the political consensus expressed in Austria on the question of euthanasia. “I hope that this consensus may continue to exist”, he added, pointing out the need to be “extremely alert to developments in Europe”. Küng recalled the far from marginal role played by the economic factor in the debate on euthanasia: “It would be absurd” he declared “if affluent Europe were to become the avant-garde of the pro-euthanasia movement for economic reasons”. At the same time, Küng condemned therapeutic obstinacy in the face of the terminally ill: “The person he concluded also has a right to die in dignity when his/her time has come, because our life on earth is limited”.
