Australia: No-one has the right to take life, says Perth Archbishop

The news from Australia that a federal parliamentary group is to be launched to promote cross-party support for a private member's Bill to legalise voluntary euthanasia, has prompted the Catholic Archbishop of Perth, Timothy Costelloe, to warn against it. This week he has called on Australian society to reflect carefully, stating that “if our society’s basic prohibition on one person killing another is violated even once, then every other human right is also relativised”.

According to federal MP Alannah MacTiernan, pivotal recent cases of desperate West Australians who ended their lives after battling terminal illnesses prove people want the option to die with dignity. She spoke out on 24 June, a day after police reported that no third party was involved in the death of an elderly couple in the city of Albany in Western Australia. The pair both suffered debilitating illnesses and had reportedly contacted a euthanasia advocacy group about products that could end their lives. Ms MacTiernan said the deaths showed that people were being put in circumstances where they felt they had to use extreme means to end their lives.

Archbishop Costelloe raised the slippery slope argument, stating that, “even with good intentions of legislators, there is no way of ensuring that future governments will not change legislation should they have the required number of parliamentary members to do so”. He mentioned the frightening example of what has transpired in Belgium in merely twelve years, where voluntary euthanasia is legal for adults and children alike and no longer solely for those terminally ill. He suggested it is, “not scare-mongering to ask if future legislation might include severely physically disabled people, those suffering distressing and degenerative neural conditions such as dementia, and infants whose medical conditions are incurable, though not life-threatening”. He warned that, “once the fundamental principle of the inviolability of human life is breached, no firm guarantee can be given against any future breaches”.

Drawing on the example of abortion law reform in the State of Victoria which strips doctors of “their legal right not to be complicit in something they find morally objectionable”, he questioned whether “medical professionals will be able to conscientiously object and not be required by law” to assist in administering euthanasia.

Although proponents suggest otherwise, the archbishop was confident that “many people do not seem to understand the difference between active euthanasia and care for the terminally ill and dying”, bringing to light the strong medications available to bring relief, often shortening a person’s life. “This is not active euthanasia but good medical care,” he pointed out; “its aim is not to kill but to make the person comfortable, enabling them to die with dignity and, where possible, serenity.” The archbishop called not for “more legislation” but rather an extension of “the provision of palliative care services and facilities to help support both the dying and their loved ones” from a holistic perspective.

He underlined that “it is for this reason the Church stands firmly against voluntary euthanasia, believing that respect for human life, from conception to natural death, is a fundamental pillar of what it means to be human”. He feels that “no-one has the right to take the life of an innocent person, and neither do we have the right to take our own lives”.

Source: Archdiocese of Perth