Pope Francis has slammed the euthanasia lobby in Europe by saying that increased calls to legalise euthanasia in several European nations reveal that we are living in a “throwaway culture”.
Condemning the culture of euthanasia, the Pope said that, today in Europe, what is deemed “useless is discarded”, while “old people are [seen as] disposable material; they are [considered] a nuisance.
“In the collective subconscious of the throwaway culture, the old, the terminally ill, and unwanted children too; they are returned to the sender before they are born.”
Attempts to legalise euthanasia have swept across Europe, with Spain becoming the latest nation to legalise assisted dying, making it the fourth European country to allow doctors to assist people to die, after Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.
Pope Francis dismissed the claim that euthanasia is compassionate and for the best of the patient; also linking it to abortion: “I ask myself two questions”, he said. “Is it fair to eliminate a human life to solve a problem? [And] is it fair to hire an assassin to solve a problem?”
The Catholic Church, he made it clear, is wholly opposed to euthanasia and abortion.
SPUC comment
A SPUC spokesperson said: “The Pope is right. Far from helping the vulnerable, our modern society engages in false compassion to justify what is, indeed, a ‘throwaway culture’ that attacks the unborn as well as the old and vulnerable.
“Whether one is religious or non-religious, every person seeking to protect the innocent and the vulnerable must resist this dangerous and deeply immoral philosophy that tramples upon the essential dignity and worth of the human being.”
Find out more about SPUC’s campaign against assisted suicide at Lives Worth Living.
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