ADRIAN O'BOYLE: Killing Compassion

In recent times there have been numerous attempts to encourage the legalisation of euthanasia in a number of EU countries. Various emotive arguments are being used in an attempt to railroad this most murderous and undignified process into our culture and into our public hospitals. In Italy, not long after the death of Piergiorgio Welby, another high profile euthanasia case came to light. On this occasion a fifty-three-year-old man suffering from muscular dystrophy, Giovanni Muvoli, has requested that the Italian State allow him assistance to end his own life.

His wife threatened that if the State doesní’t intervene she will take him out of hospital and to another country where euthanasia can be legally performed, such as Switzerland or the Netherlands. Of course this has followed on from the Welbycase. There is no law in Italy facilitating euthanasia, leading the courts to reject Welby’s request. Despite this, his doctor took the law into his own hands and disconnected his respirator.

This, bizarrely, didní’t prove detrimental to the doctor in question. The Italian medical authorities stated they wouldn’t take disciplinary action against the physician. We see from this scenario the cowardice and sheer unwillingness on behalf of the lawmakers and medical authorities to respond accordingly to medical practitioners who have, even in the eyes of Italian law, committed murder and, in some cases, been applauded for doing so.

In Switzerland the highest court has ruled that certain mentally ill people may be allowed legallyassisted suicide. The ruling was made in the case of a man with a bipolar condition who had requested a lethal drug. The court said: “If the death wish is based on an autonomous decision which takes all circumstances into account, then a mentally ill person can be prescribed sodium-pentobarbital and thereby assisted in suicide.”

Anti-euthanasia campaigners had said it takes one back to the Nazi era, when people with disabilities were considered disposable. Switzerland has made a reputation for itself as a nation that profits from the murder of innocents, be it unborn or elderly.

Even closer to home, in the UK the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecology has recently called on doctors in Britain to consider ending the lives of ‘the sickest of newborns’, the survival of whom they claim can disable healthy families.

According to reports the proposal was made in response to an increasing number of such children who are now surviving due to advances inmodern medicine. The college went on to outline that “active euthanasia” should be considered for the good of families, to spare parents the emotional burden and financial hardship of nurturing the sickest of babies.

It is pitiful to see professional medics whose job it is to protectlife openly campaigning to endlife. Many questions are being raised even by certain wings ofthe secular media, such as how competent can a request for euthanasia by a sick patient be, when they are unable to think=clearly? Surveys have shown that even short-term illnesses can cause depression and sometimes suicidal tendencies.

Also, in Holland there have been many cases where physically healthy suicidalpeople have tried to take advantage of this recent law to end their lives. But this is a profitable business.

Some of these people see this as a way to ease the tax burden of spend involved on caring for the elderly. Do we know what happens behind closed doors? Are ill pensioners being coerced by the heirs of their will to undertake assisted suicide, under the veil of concern?

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Adrian O'Boyle

Ambidextrous.

   

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