Thursday, October 18, 2018

Spain to debate legalizing euthanasia.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition


Spanish Legislature
Spain's socialist government introduced a bill, last June, to legalize euthanasia. The debate on the bill is scheduled for October 25.

The Conservative - Popular Party - strongly opposes the bill and their leader has announced that it will introduce alternative legislation to provide greater support for palliative care.

Media reports are suggesting that the bill has support from the majority in the 350 member Spain legislature.

Last May, a similar bill was expected to pass in the Portugal legislature but it was defeated after the Communist Party voted against the euthanasia bill.

2 comments:

Javier Morales Morales said...

In a few words:

CARE is "CARO"

English Spanish

Care = Cuidado
Expensive = Caro

Kill = matar
Cheap = barato

gordon friesen said...

Capitalist (that is choice based) countries such as USA have not embraced euthanasia, even where they have dabbled in assisted suicide. In opposition to this, we see Canada, with our socialist medical system, and now Spain under the leadership of socialists, opting, not simply for the freedom to die, but for universal access to medical euthanasia.

Is there a pattern here ?

Is the economic lure of reduced cost simply too much for state funded systems to resist ?

It might be claimed that UK provides a counter example, for they have rejected assisted suicide and euthanasia more than once. However, UK is also the birth place of the so called Liverpool Care Path which involves withdrawing patients from liquid, on the simple orders of one doctor, with a usual death within 48 hrs. This is definitely not euthanasia as such, but in its systematic application to probably savable older sufferers of minor infections, it might be called a form of "stealth" euthanasia, and clearly responds to the budgetary motivations described above.

Are Americans missing a crucial argument here, in considering whether, or not, to embark on the single-payer path ?

Was Canada fatally destined to implement utilitarian euthanasia (something we clearly see forming on the horizon) from the moment of nationalizing healthcare ?

I know this is an unpopular, even heretical view in this country, but it may, unfortunately, also be a fact.

Without question, the economics of nationalized healthcare imposes a greater requirement for vigilance. A requirement which we have, apparently not satisfied.

Feel the Love,

Gordon from Montreal