The right balance needs to be struck between the care of the invalid and the acceptance of death. The practical advice is that “on so delicate a question, each of the terms used must be subjected to careful examination, so as to avoid any ambiguity”. That is what is recommended by Archbishop Jean-Pierre Ricard of Bordeaux, president of the Episcopal Conference of France, in a declaration released on 20 September. Ricard comments on a report drawn up by the National Assembly with the title “Respecting life, accepting death” and on a Bill relating to the rights of the patient and to the end of life, according to which “any form of depenalization of euthanasia is utterly to be rejected”. “The Catholic Church writes Msgr. Ricard cannot but express its agreement with the main objectives of the Bill in its present form”. Citing a passage of the encyclical Evangelium Vitae, he recalls that “we need to determine whether the therapeutic means at our disposal are effectively disproportionate to any prospect of an improvement” in the patient’s health. The renunciation of these means “is not equivalent to assisted suicide or euthanasia; it is an acceptance of the human condition before death”. Yet such a decision adds Ricard clearly does not exempt medical staff from the duty not only to avoid any action that could deliberately precipitate death, but also to continue to care for the invalid”. With regard to the question whether treatment should be maintained, Ricard writes: “It would undoubtedly be inhumane to try to prolong agonies. When death is inescapable, in the short term, absolute priority needs to be given to the treatment of suffering and the accompaniment of the invalid”. And if it is decided to stop treatment, it is always essential to ensure the “necessary care” of the patient, because “to do otherwise concludes Ricard would testify to disinterest in, if not actual abandonment of, the invalid”.
