The ongoing debate in the country on euthanasia leads me to propose to readers the Truth some historical, bioethical and religious considerations.
The growing request to legalize assisted suicide derives from some concomitant factors: demographic, medical and ideological.
From a demographic point of view, the West is a continent in danger of extinction: there are fewer and fewer young people, more and more elderly people. At these rates our destiny is disappearance.
But what does demographic decline have to do with euthanasia? Very much. First of all because a society of elderly people is an old society in terms of age but also spiritually, and, above all, alone. We are all aware of our grandparents or, for those who have reached a certain age, our elderly parents: how much they need the company of younger people! I remember my grandmother, almost ninety years old, whispering to me from her chair in the retirement home: “Luckily you came to visit me, I was tired of being with these old people.” Then it made me smile and I didn’t understand: the “old men” were often younger than her! But the old generations need the new ones, just as the new ones need the old ones. The smile of a grandchild brings joy back to the face of a grandfather, just as the strength of an adult child restores serenity and security.
But when young people are missing, this intergenerational solidarity is missing. Demographic decline means that there are many old people and, what’s more, they are alone! In these conditions life loses its colors, because loneliness is often the heaviest of illnesses. It is therefore clear why euthanasia is not a topic on continents where young people, children, abound.
One wonders why our governments, for decades, have done almost nothing to support the family, to help parents have children while avoiding at least some of the thousand traps that modernity imposes on us. No, for decades they told us that there were too many of us, that having children was just a sacrifice, that motherhood and fatherhood were an obstacle to professional fulfillment…
The second reason that makes euthanasia so popular today is medical progress: we live much longer, with many benefits, but, sometimes, one might say, we live too much. If we add the above-mentioned loneliness to too much, the drama becomes evident.
Finally, the third reason: secularized societies are increasingly losing the meaning of life. Nothing is sacred anymore, for a long time. The family, the place of stable affections and mutual help, is no longer sacred; the life of the conceived is not; why then should it be that of the old? Nietzsche he said that “God is dead” and that this would lead to terrible wars: the prophecy came true, with the First and Second World Wars, but today’s atom-man now thinks more about killing himself than about killing. His first war is against himself, against his biological identity, against his very survival. Why do we live? We don’t know. Lack of faith in God also becomes lack of faith in the meaning of life; the absence of a Resurrection makes the cross incomprehensible; nothingness envelops us to such an extent that we desire to reach it definitively. After having lost religious hope in Happiness, even the dream of infinite material pleasure was shattered: “everything is eaten, everything is drunk, nothing more to say” (Paul Verlaine), nothing to look for, nothing to spend on!
To truly trust life, to get married, have children, endure pain, suffer together with others, to dive into life with enthusiasm, he wrote Romano Guardiniwe must first of all believe that life has a meaning that goes beyond it; that makes sense, even when you can’t see it… Without sense, why continue?
He wrote Albert Camus: «There is only one truly serious philosophical problem: that of suicide. Judging whether life is worth living or not is answering the fundamental question of philosophy.”
For centuries the West has given an answer: “God saw that it was good.” To live is good, to kill oneself is to lack love for oneself, for one’s loved ones, for the Author of life himself. This is why the West created wealth, banks, hospitals, universities, science, art… But now the roots have dried up. The future is in every sense in the hands of other peoples, younger and more confident.
After the suicide of a civilization, all that remains is personal suicide.
Mind you, though, that Radical-style euthanasia hides a thousand dangers. Just look at what happens in countries where it is already legal: doctors who kill on their own initiative, to free up beds or out of a delusion of omnipotence; clinics that turn the death of others into business; relatives who choose the death of their loved ones to hasten obtaining the inheritance; elderly people who ask for death because they are forced to feel “a burden” on the State and the family; politicians who think out loud, remembering that healthcare spending is no longer sustainable and that only euthanasia will save the budgets…
How not to remember Jacques Attaliwell-known French economist and banker, godfather of Macronwho already several years ago hoped for the introduction of euthanasia in capitalist countries, for libertarian and economic reasons, since “from the moment one exceeds the age of 60-65, man lives longer than he produces and then costs society dearly”?
If euthanasia became law, it would already be a strong influence. Today we are conditioned, positively, by a very clear idea: if we have a sick relative, we must help him, treat him. It is, at the very least, a duty of charity. But if the law were to pass, then instead of duty, interest, annoyance, fatigue, carelessness would often take over… Of course, sometimes the effort of living can lead to desperation and in these cases people, unfortunately, can commit suicide (no one, however, will put a suicide person in prison!). But whether they do it alone is one thing, whether society first takes charge of legitimizing them, supporting them and then perhaps forcing them, in a more or less subtle way, is completely different. I would reread what he wrote on the Corriere della Seraon April 16, 2005, the ambassador Sergio Romano «I would not want these practices (biotestament, ed.)on the day in which they were foreseen by a law, the relatives of the sick old man should be used to gently push him towards eternity. The world, dear Manconiis much less good than the champions of the “good death” campaigns think. Old people, when they cannot decide to die, require time and care. If they are poor, they weigh on family coffers. If they are rich and wealthy, they consume money that they could leave to their heirs. Even the most affectionate relatives end up thinking, in these circumstances, that the poor old man would be doing himself and others a favor if he took his leave. Someone around him would start to send out some signals and someone else would make more explicit allusions. Until the day the poor man or woman comes to the conclusion that it is better to leave rather than be surrounded by rude and impatient people.”
