No one wants to suffer. No one wants to see their loved ones suffer. This is why a significant majority of Australians are alleged to support voluntary euthanasia and why there are ongoing attempts to legalise the practice in Australia. However like other life and death issues, euthanasia evokes all sorts of emotions, memories, prejudices and misconceptions. We can quite easily become convinced that it promotes ‘death with dignity’, compassion, autonomy, or healthcare. But when we delve deeper into the nature, attitudes and effect of medically assisted killing, it soon becomes clear that euthanasia is never a humane response to suffering.
Indeed, Pope Benedict has said: “euthanasia is a false solution to the drama of suffering, a solution unworthy of man. Indeed, the true response cannot be to put someone to death, however ‘kindly’, but rather it
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We turn to Pope John Paul II to answers this question from a religious viewpoint. “The request which arises from the human heart in the supreme confrontation with suffering and death, especially when faced with the temptation to give up in utter depression, is above all a request for companionship, sympathy and support in the time of trial. It is a plea for help to keep on hoping when all human hope fails.” The goal, is to improve quality of life for patients, their families and carers by providing care that addresses physical, emotional, social, cultural and spiritual needs. The aim is to help the person live as well as possible; not to die as soon as possible. This often involves decisions about appropriate levels of medical treatment. Catholic teaching and good ethical end of life care do not require us to do everything, by ever means available, to persevere life. Life is not a God, but a gift of God. While we should not seek to bring about our own death or the death of others, we are not obliged to try to prolong life