Spain: euthanasia, the ishops against bill of law. “The commandment ‘thou shall not kill’ is the basis of every human ethics”

Yesterday, the Family and Life Commission of the Spanish Bishops Conference took position on a bill of law on euthanasia and assisted suicide. “The commandment ‘thou shall not kill’ is the basis of any truly human ethics and in particular of the Christian tradition”, begins the documents, which, quoting the Evangelium vitae and the Spe Salvi, speaks of “the total respect for life” that comes from such commandment and claims that “our finiteness cannot be shrugged off”, against those who speak of euthanasia and assisted suicide “as feasible, acceptable solutions to the problem of pain and grief”. “Euthanasia” is “an action or omission that by its nature and intention causes death in order to remove any pain” and, for the Church, it is “a moral evil and an attack against human dignity”. In the bill of law, the bishops criticise “the fact the principle of independence and pure subjectivity has been turned into an absolute, as the key criteria for taking a decision”, and state, instead, that “there’s no right to arbitrarily use one’s life”. Even more because euthanasia and assisted suicide “involve other people”, so they fall outside the scope of people’s exclusive independence, the bishops argue. Such practices are also alien to medicine and healthcare professions, which are “unfailingly led by the axiom ‘to cure sometimes; to help often; to comfort always’”, and contradict the Spanish Code of Medical Ethics.