Notes for reflection and argument on the euthanasia lawA few years ago, Spain stepped on the accelerator of death, with the approval of the Law of euthanasia. Today, we contemplate, as in a kind of horror series, the media and social morbidity before the application of «assisted death», or rather, the compassionate liquidation of a girl whose cries for help have been systematically ignored by society.
For this reason, we bring up to date this reflection on the limits of a society whose «compassion» has given birth to an injectable guillotine that evidences, however, dehumanized cruelty, the horror of institutionalized violence and the denial of selfless love to those who need it most.
The excessive bet on death is one of those symptoms of our destructive path as a society. It is paradoxical that they want to present as progressive laws that underlie the same ideas and reasons used by the National Socialist government of Germany in the 30s of the last century.
Because no, Hitler did not begin by killing Jews and Gypsies, he began by applying “mercy” killing to a handicapped child at the beginning of 1939. From then on, a program was set up to apply these criteria to similar cases, shortly afterwards it was extended to the mentally ill and then..., well, we all know the story.
With the euthanasia, What we are saying to other people is: “it is better for you to die”.
Yes, you... for being old, for being depressed, for being handicapped, for having this or that syndrome... “It is better for you to die..., because I am not going to take care of you”.
Moreover, the approval of this law, together with the scant support existing in Spain for the development and universalization of access to palliative care, carries an additional message: “It is best if you die..., because I am not going to take care of you and I am not going to help others to do so”.
Thank God, yes, there are those others, health professionals, many and very good, who dedicate their lives to caring for those whom this law wants to kill because it has decided that a life in such and such a way is unbearable.
Life, when there are means, not cruelty, when there are possibilities and, above all, when there is love, deserves to be lived.
The voice of health professionals, family members and people who find themselves in situations that are not exactly idyllic is unanimous when they emphasize that a terminally ill person does not ask for death: he or she asks for the elimination of suffering, not of life.
Euthanasia does not seek to put an end to the problem; it eliminates the person suffering from the problem, creating a situation of medical regression by limiting or preventing the search for new solutions to the ailment.
Yes, indeed, there are lives with greater or lesser dignity and truly unworthy deaths, such as those of those who remain at the bottom of the sea trying to reach a better life. What does not exist are unworthy people.
Our duty as a society is to help them to live. We are very clear about this, for example, in the prevention of suicide. Inducing death, and even more, wanting to force doctors to certify a provoked death as “natural”, seriously wounds the spinal cord of a humane society whose characteristic should be the attention, care and promotion of the weakest. Even if it is more comfortable to give a lethal injection and go out for drinks, than to spend a night holding the hand of an almost unconscious person.
However, what should be proper to man, to woman? I do not think I am wrong in the second option, because, in the words of the Dr. Martínez Sellés, A society that kills, even with a smile, is no longer humane.
Director of Omnes. Degree in Communication, with more than 15 years of experience in Church communication. She has collaborated in media such as COPE or RNE.
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