Spanish Bioethics Committee calls euthanasia a murder

Instruments used for euthanasia. Photo: cruxnow

Members of the Spanish Bioethics Committee have unanimously opposed a euthanasia bill, warning the country's government that the proposed legislation would oblige doctors to commit murder, Crux reported.

A 74-page report by the committee accountable to the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Equality stated that there are "solid health, ethical, legal, economic and social reasons" to reject euthanasia and assisted suicide.

“The legalization of euthanasia and/or assisted suicide implies the initiation of the devaluing of human life, the frontiers of which are difficult to predict,” the report says.

The document says that “euthanasia and assisted suicide are not signs of progress but rather a regression of civilization,” and “in the context in which the value of human life is often conditioned by criteria of social utility, economic interest, family responsibilities ... the legalization of early death would add a new set of problems."

The committee recommended that instead of enshrining euthanasia as a right, the government should instead draw up a protocol for "palliative sedation" to deal with cases of extreme suffering.

Members of the organization also warned the government that a euthanasia law would give a new "power of death" to medical professionals, whose role in healing the sick would be "substantially altered" by a duty to kill or assist in suicides.

Earlier, the UOJ wrote that according to the study, 20 people a day commit euthanasia in the Netherlands.

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