Ignorance of meaning of suffering leads to acceptance of euthanasia, warns Mexican expert

Mexico City, Mexico, Apr 14, 2008 / 14:08 pm

The director of the Department of Bioethics at the Anahuac University in Mexico, Dr. Oscar Martinez Gonzalez, said the “incapacity to discover the meaning and value of suffering and to see the true face of death makes understanding the arguments against euthanasia difficult to understand.”

During a recent Bioethics Congress in Acapulco, Martinez said the country’s new law on living wills, which takes effect this year, “legalizes passive euthanasia” at the request of the patient.  Killing the infirm, he said, “ends the suffering and pain but also ends the life of the person.”  “A society that is not able to take care of the infirm is a society that has lost its way,” Martinez said.

For his part, Father Gonzalo Miranda, director of the Department of Bioethics at the Regina Apostolurum Pontifical University in Rome, noted that the new law has its origins in the Advance Directives that are widespread use in the United States and have two aspects: “One is the ‘living will,’ and the other is simply a directive for long term medical care,” he said.

“They are two different instruments that can be combined to establish what one wants to be done or not, and at the same time to help discern what is the best decision to make,” said Father Miranda.

While he pointed out that most living wills are not problematic, they are used by pro-abortion and euthanasia groups to “change the mentality of people to accept euthanasia.”

“The living will is not something that resolves problems,” as a person can’t know whether he will be cured in a week or in a month.  “In the United States,” he added, “70% of those who sign a living will change their minds once they fall seriously ill.”