Life always has value” “

“It is deeply misguided to propose a law by which it would be legal for terminally ill people to be killed or assisted in suicide by those caring for them”; such a step “would fundamentally undermine the basis of law and medicine and undermine the duty of the state to care for vulnerable people”. In these terms is expressed the firm opposition of the Church of England and the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales to the euthanasia Bill recently drafted by the Select Committee of the House of Lords on Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill, aimed at amending current legislation that prohibits euthanasia by introducing assisted suicide. The Anglican archbishop of Canterbury ROWAN WILLIAMS and the Catholic archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal MURPHY-O’CONNOR issued a joint statement in recent days, addressed to the said Committee, in which they express their strong opposition to the bill, called “misguided” and “unnecessary”, and in a letter sent to the chairman of the Committee, Lord Mackay, recalled that “respect for human life at all its stages is the foundation of a civilised society” and that “the long term consequences of any change in the law to allow euthanasia in limited circumstances would be immensely grave”. SELF-DETERMINATION. “God himself gave humanity the gift of life”. That’s why it “must be accepted with gratitude and used in a responsible manner”, say the bishops in their statement. They also emphasise the fact that “those who become more vulnerable due to illness or disability deserve particular care and protection”. Two arguments are often used in defence of euthanasia, “self-determination and well-being”, point out the bishops. As for the first, “the so-called right to choose when to die for patients afflicted by intolerable sufferings”, the document recognises that the Bill “prescribes that this right be limited to terminal patients”, but – argue the bishops – “it is difficult to understand how this restriction can be defended. The sufferings caused by a non-terminal chronic pathology, mental or physical, may be equally grave as to seem intolerable. So why should not euthanasia to extended to these cases too?” QUALITY OF LIFE. “It is affirmed – continues the document – that in some situations life no longer has value, especially if patients no long have any chance of improvement and are inexorably heading towards the end. But if this is the justification, once again – say the bishops – there are no reasons to limit euthanasia to the terminally ill, nor to those who have voluntarily requested it”. The principle of self-determination and that of the quality of life, they warn, “may lead in practice to forms of euthanasia far more widespread that could at the outset be imagined”. As an example the document cites “the case of Holland where we are witnessing an extension of this practice to the mentally ill, to those who are tired of life, or even to those who are not in a condition to give their own consent, such as minors and young children”. UNDERMINING TRUST. “The right of self-determination is not absolute” and “the exercise of personal autonomy must necessarily be limited so that human beings may live in a harmony conforming to reason”. “Although the right to reject treatment (albeit in limited circumstances) is recognised today, the law does not admit a right to die”, declare the bishops, according to whom the negative consequences of a change to the legislation on euthanasia would by far outweigh the so-called benefits. The absolute value of human life must be upheld. The document declares that “patients cannot and ought not to be placed in a condition of demanding the cooperation of physicians to cause their own death, a fact that is intrinsically illegal and morally unacceptable”. Legalising euthanasia would be tantamount to “undermining the relation of trust between physicians and patients”, while the value of human life “implies the primary duty of treatment, the effort to alleviate pain, the counselling and support of the patient”. “Permitting physicians in some circumstances to kill their own patients”, say the bishops, could involve the risk of “therapies being regarded by more vulnerable persons as something potentially threatening to their own life”. COMPASSION AND RESPECT. Re-affirming the need for “the treatment for terminal patients to be proportional to the expected benefits, and not excessively painful, intrusive and risky”, and calling for effective regimes of pain relief, and not therapeutic obstinacy, the bishops express the hope that “terminal patients be helped to die with dignity, or rather, to live with dignity until they die” as happens in hospices, following whose example “palliative care and the emotional and spiritual support of the dying” ought to be provided everywhere. In this perspective the proposed Bill is “unnecessary” because “what terminally ill people need is to be cared for, not to be killed. They need – concludes the document – to be treated with the compassion and respect that this Bill would put gravely at risk”.