Faith leaders oppose euthanasia plans

French Christian, Muslim and Jewish leaders have issued a joint statement rejecting a bill introduced in parliament on Tuesday that would allow doctors to put dying patients into a “deep sedation” until they die, saying it would legalise euthanasia without saying so, writes Tom Heneghan.

“When it’s an issue of life or death, a human conscience cannot be at peace if it plays with words,” said the statement signed by Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, Archbishop of Lyons, as well as Orthodox, Protestant, Muslim and Jewish leaders, published in the Paris daily Le Monde. “Every human life must be respected, especially when it is at its most fragile.”

In neighbouring Belgium, where euthanasia has been legal since 2002, the country’s 12 non-retired bishops issued a joint letter last week against a possible law to include the mentally ill in the circle of potential candidates for a medically assisted death.

No such law has been submitted to parliament in Brussels, but the bishops said the issue was already under debate and it would be the logical next step in the steady extension of categories of persons whose lives could legally be ended.