Tuesday, January 23, 2007
CARDINAL MARTINI IN THE NEWS AGAIN - ABOUT EUTHANASIA THIS TIME
ROME: The Vatican's rigid opposition to euthanasia has come under fire from within its own ranks after it denied a religious funeral to a paralysed man who had asked to be removed from a life-saving respirator.
The influential former archbishop of Milan, Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, said on Sunday that terminally ill patients should be given the right to refuse treatments and that the doctors who assist them should be protected by law.
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That instance of disagreement over euthanasia bothers me, and I'm inclined to see it Martini's way. We are not talking about active murder here. We are talking about a patient's right to determine his own medical care or stop that care. The argument that this was wrong starts down the road to an argument that all and every means no matter how expensive and no matter how devastating to the patient involved must be used in every medical situation. With enough technology, human bodies can be maintained in life support long past the point of death. Is that the road we are to travel if we are Catholic?
