Assisted suicide and euthanasia express a ‘false kind of humanity’

German church leaders have criticised a cross-party bill to allow assisted suicide, which is currently unregulated in the country.

“Claims shouldn’t be made that assisted suicide and euthanasia are a help for dying people – they rather represent a pseudo-humanity,” said Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer of Regensburg, a member of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith. The bishop was commenting on draft assisted suicide legislation, tabled jointly by members of Germany’s governing Christian Democratic Union and opposition Social Democratic Party. The bill is to be debated on 13 November. Meanwhile, a monument is planned in Berlin to 200,000 victims of the Nazi euthanasia programme.

n Writing in The Sydney Morning Herald last week Sydney’s Archbishop-elect Anthony Fisher said: “I know that those who support euthanasia are not all grizzly Dr Deaths … but, no law can prevent abuse in this area.”