The ethical problems of euthanasia in the Encyclical Evangelium Vitae

Abstract

The article deals with the question of euthanasia and the first task is to clarify the concept of euthanasia. John Paul Il's Encyclical presents a definition based on an element which is essential for an ethical opinion: the will of a person who acts to procure the death of someone who is suffering, whether through an action or through an omission. A second important question is that of the ethical opinion an suicide, from an objective point of view, seen as free self-destruction. One can understand that deciding on an attempting to provoke one's death, is in itself an irrational and therefore immoral action, both from a religious point of a view and on the basis of the rational comprehension of the person as a patrimony for himself and for others, a patrimony which one does not own at all. This is exactly why euthanasia is also irrational and immoral: one must not collaborate with that "existential defeat" which the decision to finish one's life is. The author considers the concept of the "dignity of life". and "dignified death", pointing out that whaever proclaims the right to a dignified death for a terminally or chronically sick person does this on basis of the implicit understanding of that person's dignity of life, even if says that life is no longer worth living. Above all, helping a suffering person die in a worthy manner means helping him to die in a human manner, that is in the mature acceptance of his human condition and in the effort to give his suffering a meaning. At the same time one should try in all possible and lawful ways to relieve his suffering, whether physical, psychological or spiritual. The elimination of the person, with an action or an omission, is unworthy of the person who is eliminated and of the person who carries out that action, even if inspired by a sense of mistaken pity.