Article Added On: January 23, 2005 - over 3 years ago
Title: Pope urges Holand to reflect on euthanasia
Author: Frances D'Emilio
Publication: CP
Publication Date: January 01, 2005 - over 3 years ago
Faith Groups: Roman Catholic
Themes: religious tolerance/intolerance

Abstract: Pope John Paul urged Dutch authorities and medical personnel on Saturday to weigh the gravity of their choices about euthanasia in their country, the first country to legalize euthanasia for adults who no longer want to live with unbearable, incurable pain.

Sunday, January 23, 2005

VATICAN CITY (AP) - Pope John Paul urged Dutch authorities and medical personnel on Saturday to weigh the gravity of their choices about euthanasia in their country, the first country to legalize euthanasia for adults who no longer want to live with unbearable, incurable pain.

The issue of life and death in the Netherlands was back in the news Saturday with the publication of a study in the Dutch Journal of Medicine that 22 terminally ill newborns have died in mercy killings since 1997, based on reports by doctors.

The Dutch government is supposed to make a decision on proposals by the main Dutch physicians' association to create an independent board to review euthanasia for terminally ill people with "no free will" to decide their fate, including children, the severely retarded and those in irreversible coma.

"For several years now, Dutch society, marked by the phenomenon of secularization, has set in motion a new legislative policy 'concerning the beginning and the end of human life,"' the Pope said in remarks to the Netherlands' new ambassador to the Holy See, Monique Patricia Antoinette Frank, who was presenting her credentials to the pontiff.

"The Holy See has not failed to lay out its clear position and to invite Catholics in the Netherlands to always bear witness to the most absolute respect of the human person, from conception to natural death," the pontiff said.

The Catholic Church forbids euthanasia.

"Yet again I urge the authorities and medical personnel, and all those who exercise an educative role, to weigh the gravity of these questions, and thus the importance of the choices that one takes, with the aim of constructing a society ever more attentive to persons and their dignity," the pontiff said.

The Netherlands legalized euthanasia, or doctor-assisted suicide, in 2001 in cases where the patient is suffering unbearable pain and there is no hope of recovery. Last month, a Dutch medical commission, in a nonbinding report, said euthanasia should be allowed in cases of those who are not physically ill but are suffering mentally and don't want to live.

The illegal practice in the Netherlands of killing terminally ill newborns is viewed with horror by opponents but seen as ethical by many euthanasia advocates.

In the same speech, John Paul said that education, chastity and sexual faithfulness are the responsible methods to combat AIDS, just days after Spanish bishops supported condom use to fight the disease, then quickly retreated from their declaration.

The Vatican has come under fire from many activists in the fight against AIDS because its policy against birth control forbids use of condoms, including to prevent transmission of the HIV virus, and the Pope's comments Saturday essentially reiterated the anti-condom teaching.