Monthly Archives: May 2017

MANCHESTER, England The Vatican is investigating the decision of a group of psychiatric care centers run by a Catholic religious order in Belgium to permit doctors to perform euthanasia of nonterminal mentally ill patients on its premises.

Brother Rene Stockman, superior general of the Brothers of Charity, told Catholic News Service that Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State, is personally examining the situation.

Brother Stockman complained directly to Rome after the Brothers of Charity Group, which runs 15 centers for psychiatric patients across Belgium, rejected a formal request from him to reverse the new policy.

RELATED:Belgian priests push back on euthanasia directive for Catholic hospitals

In a May 4 email to CNS, Stockman said: Because it is a matter of the Belgian group, I informed the Belgian bishops conference in order to ask for their opinion and to ask a clear statement of them.

At the same time, I am in contact with the Vatican the Congregation (for Institutes) of Consecrated Life (and Societies of Apostolic Life) and the secretary of state who asked me for more information, said Stockman, a psychiatric care specialist.

I hope that there will come a clear answer from the Belgian bishops and the Vatican, he continued. I have trust in it.

He suggested that the new policy could force the brothers from providing psychiatric care in Belgium.

Stockman said: I wait for the clear answer of the church and that answer will be presented to our organization, in the hope that it will adapt its vision I hope we will not have to withdraw our responsibility in the field of mental health care in the place where we started as a congregation with such care more than 200 years ago.

The Brothers of Charity was founded in 1807 in Ghent, Belgium, by Father Peter Joseph Triest, whose cause for beatification was opened in 2001.

Inspired by the spirituality of St. Vincent de Paul and dedicated to working with the elderly and the mentally ill, the order initially was known as the Hospital Brothers of St. Vincent and spread to 30 countries.

In the Flanders region of Belgium, the group is considered to be the most important provider of mental health care services, serving 5,000 patients a year. The order also runs schools, employing about 12,000 staff nationwide.

The Brothers of Charity Group announced it would allow euthanasia on its premises in a nine-page document in March, about a year after a private Catholic rest home in Diest, Belgium, was fined $6,600 for refusing the euthanasia of a 74-year-old woman suffering from lung cancer.

About 12 psychiatric patients in the care of the Brothers of Charity are believed to have asked for euthanasia over the past year, with two of them being transferred elsewhere to receive the injections to end their lives.

The new policy document harmonizes the practices of the centers in the group with Belgian law on euthanasia.

It sought to balance the Catholic belief in the inviolability of innocent human life with duty of care under the law and with the demands of patient autonomy.

Stockman said, however, that for the brothers, respect of life is absolute and cannot be offered for the autonomy of the patient.

The groups largely lay board of directors, he said, see euthanasia as a medical act, but the brothers cannot accept it as a medical act.

Finally, they agree that euthanasia should be done inside the institutes, he said. We always refused to let euthanasia be done inside the walls of the center.

He rejected suggestions that many of the Brothers themselves favored the policy, insisting instead that the order upholds the doctrine of the Catholic and cannot accept the law on euthanasia.

Stockman said: The whole mentality in Belgium is changing very fast and there is pressure from the government against any refusal of euthanasia. But until now, the institutes have had the right to refuse.

I see it as a real crisis and I call it a door that is opened and cannot be closed anymore, he added. More groups will be touched by it: It started with somatic suffering, now psychiatric suffering, afterward people with a severe handicap, elderly people and so on.

Belgium legalized euthanasia in 2003, a year after the Netherlands became the first country since Nazi Germany to introduce the procedure.

Technically, euthanasia in Belgium remains an offense, with the law protecting doctors from prosecution only if they abide by specific criteria.

In 2014, the law was extended to emancipated children, and doctors are increasingly giving lethal injections to people who are disabled, demented or mentally ill.

Continued here:

Vatican launches Belgium euthanasia investigation - Crux: Covering all things Catholic

The Brothers of Charity are to permit euthanasia in their psychiatric care centres

A group of psychiatric care centres run by a Catholic religious order in Belgium has announced it will permit doctors to undertake the euthanasia of non-terminal mentally ill patients on its premises.

In a nine-page document, the Brothers of Charity Group stated that it would allow doctors to perform euthanasia in any of its 15 centres, which provide care to more than 5,000 patients a year, subject to carefully stipulated criteria.

Brother Ren Stockman, the superior general, has distanced himself from the decision of the groups largely lay board of directors, however, and has told Belgian media that the policy was a tragedy.

We cannot accept that euthanasia is carried out within the walls of our institutions, said Brother Stockman, a specialist in psychiatric care, in an April 27 interview with De Morgen newspaper in Brussels.

He told the newspaper that he intended to raise the matter with Catholic authorities in Rome and with the Belgian bishops.

Carine Brochier, a Catholic bioethicist from Brussels, told Catholic News Service that she was certain that political and financial pressure was exerted on the Brothers of Charity Group to allow euthanasia.

The groups new policy document, which was drafted in March, comes about a year after a court fined the St Augustine Catholic rest home in Diest, Belgium, for refusing to allow the euthanasia of a lung cancer patient on its premises.

The home was ordered to pay 6,000 euros after it prevented doctors from giving a lethal injection to Mariette Buntjens, 74, who instead was taken by ambulance to her private address to die in peaceful surroundings.

The pro-euthanasia movement is really happy about what is happening, said Brochier, adding that she believed internal pressures also influenced the decision.

The Brothers of Charity work with lay people. Those people think that euthanasia should be allowed in the premises, she said. Also, I guess some of the Brothers of Charity wanted the euthanasia to be permitted within the walls.

Ren Stockman is completely the opposite way, but the Brothers of Charity here in Belgium are very, very progressive, she said.

The new policy document harmonises the practices of the centres in the group with Belgian law on euthanasia.

It sought to balance the Catholic belief in the inviolability of innocent human life with duty of care under the law and with the demands of patient autonomy.

The group has promised to take requests for death seriously, and it expressed the opinion that a carefully guided euthanasia can prevent more violent forms of suicide.

The policy document has acknowledged the difficulties in providing euthanasia to psychiatric patients, noting that Belgian euthanasia law was primarily written for physical suffering in a terminal situation.

The suffering of psychiatric patients must therefore be considered hopeless, unbearable and untreatable if a request for euthanasia was to proceed, the policy document says, adding that requests must be voluntarily and repeatedly made by a competent adult for them to be legitimate.

After three doctors have assented to the patients request, the euthanasia can go ahead on the Brothers of Charity premises, the document concluded.

If the euthanasia procedure takes place in a facility of the Brothers of Charity, a preliminary review is necessary, it says. The reason is that, on the one hand, we want to respect the physicians therapeutic freedom, but on the other hand we want to go about euthanasia being performed in a facility of the Brothers of Charity with the utmost caution.

In the Flanders region of Belgium, the order is considered to be the most important provider of mental health care services. The order also runs schools, employing about 12,000 staff nationwide.

About 12 psychiatric patients in the care of the Brothers of Charity are believed to have asked for euthanasia over the past year, with two of them being transferred elsewhere to receive the injections to end their lives.

Raf De Rycke, chairman of the board of the Brothers of Charity Group, said in comments reported by De Morgen April 25 that the group was guided by three fundamental values in producing the policy: respect for the patients life, the autonomy of the patient and the relationship between the care provider and the patient.

The protection of life remains fundamental, said De Rycke. But we also want to respect the patients autonomy, even if he has the desire to live no longer. We do not approve of the [euthanasia] act as such, but respect the demand and see [permitting] it as a form of charity.

Brochier said she suspected the Belgian bishops were very embarrassed by the policy but suggested they shared some of the blame because, she said, they appeared to give up the fight against euthanasia, partly by failing to correct some priests and doctors when they have argued for the procedure while publicly purporting to be Catholic.

It is very difficult to hear a clear message about euthanasia, Brochier said. But it should be condemned very strongly, and doctors who perform euthanasia should have a clear message from the Church, from the pope, from the bishops, so that they can understand that they are killing somebody.

Palliative care is very good in Belgium. We dont need euthanasia, she added.

CNS repeatedly try to reach the Belgian bishops conference for comment.

Belgium legalised euthanasia in 2003, a year after the Netherlands became the first country since Nazi Germany to introduce the procedure.

Technically, euthanasia in Belgium remains an offence, with the law protecting doctors from prosecution only if they abide by carefully set criteria.

This initially included limiting euthanasia only to adults who were suffering unbearably and who were able to give their consent but, in 2014, the law was also extended to emancipated children.

Despite safeguards, critics have argued the law is interpreted so liberally that euthanasia is available on demand, with doctors also increasingly giving lethal injections to people who are disabled, demented or mentally ill.

Continue reading here:

Belgian Brothers to allow euthanasia for mentally ill patients ... - Catholic Herald Online

Anyone looking at the experience in Canada since euthanasia and assisted suicide laws came into force last year, should be struck by the moves to extend the law so soon after they had been passed. After all, when you look to Belgium and Holland and even Oregon USA, the moves to expand their laws and/or the application of their laws has taken some time to develop.

There are many reasons why the European and Oregon situations have taken time to see the various incremental legal and effective interpretational changes gather momentum. In Belgium and Holland the statutes were written in very broad terms relating to unbearable and irretrievable suffering. While the understanding at the time of their debates focussed on euthanasia as a last resort option for people in the last stages of a terminal illness, the wording never restricted application in that way.

In the last five years and more there has been a continual pushing at the edges of the community understanding of the breadth of the law. Euthanasia for tinnitus, for blindness, for psychological suffering, for the accrual of minor complaints associated with old age, for fear of entering a nursing home all unthinkable in the beginning. Add to that the 2013 statute amendment to include children in Belgium and the current discussion in Holland in respect to assisted suicide for people over 70 years of age who are simply tired of life, and one can legitimately wonder where it will all stop.

As Dutch journalist, Gerbert van Loenen once observed:

Making euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide legal started a development we did not foresee. The old limit thou shalt not kill was abandoned, a new limit is yet to be found.

Canada seems bent on catching up with the Benelux countries at some pace.

In Victoria, Australia, there also seems to be something of a rush.

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A Ministerial Advisory Panel charged with the role of consulting about how to make assisted suicide safe, is due to provide an interim report to Premier Daniel Andrews any day now. The final report is due in July and legislation is slated for the second half of this year.

The Panels reference was the Legal and Social Issues Committee of the Victorian Parliament report in the matter of the Inquiry into End of Life Choices that was finalised in mid-2016.

Recommendation 49 of that report called upon the Victorian Parliament to legislate assisted suicide for people, suffering from a serious and incurable condition which is causing enduring and unbearable suffering and that these persons must be at the end of life (final weeks or months of life).

So, not necessarily but most likely a terminal illness but still only for those at the very end or, as the Dutch talked about: a last resort option.

Politically this makes sense. The game, if I can call it that, is to gain 50% plus one support in the two chambers of parliament. The logic is, of course, that it is the first hurdle that is the hardest. Better to get something on the statute books rather than risking yet another loss from trying for too much.

In September last year, Victorian Health Minister, Jill Hennessy warned pro-euthanasia advocates not to be too greedy:

Politicians need to ask themselves: is it about being pure or is it about saying lets get the best result we can?

This warning did not stop Victorian euthanasia supporter, Dr Rodney Syme from entering the debate immediately arguing for an expansion of eligibility to include neurological failure, such as multiple sclerosis, motor neurone disease and Parkinsons disease, who have progressive diseases, and those with profound stroke or high quadriplegia who have a static condition, may have an ill-defined trajectory to death, and while suffering unbearably, may be discriminated against by narrow legislation. It is precisely the same sort of argument that could (and will) be made for a later amendment if Syme does not get his way. Think about that.

Indeed, everyone knows that later extension is a possibility via an amendment bill. Euthanasia for children was originally considered for the first Belgian debate. Trudo Lemmens relates that, children were explicitly excluded from the ambit of the original law because it was deemed so controversial that including it may have threatened approval of the Euthanasia Bill.

Back in Victoria, there have been a few leaks about the possible direction the Panels report might take. One article pointed to a plan not to provide effective conscience protections for doctors.

Today we are told that the Panel will recommend a prognisis-based qualifier:

But the advisory panel wants to extend the timeline and the government is believed to be considering three options: 24 months, 12 months or six months.

It is mere speculation on my part, but it would seem that this kind of qualifier might be a compromise position between the Parliamentary Inquirys recommendation and the agitation of the likes of Syme. Either way, it is much broader than the original at the end of life (final weeks or months of life).

This leaves many questions unanswered: Does this call into question the judgement of the members of the Parliamentary Committee? Is it now considered that the Victorian public are open to this kind of extension where those who submitted to the Parliamentary Inquiry were clearly not? Will the members of the Parliamentary Committee rebuke the Panel for their extension?

Lack of answers aside, the idea of incremental extension is now out in the open for all to see. No Victorian MP can ignore it. They now need to question, not whether the model presented satisfies their judgement on a set of limits, but that their vote in support of any framework will most certainly provide precursory endorsement and impetus to later extension.

Dutch Health Minister, Edith Schippers, speaking enthusiastically about euthanasia recently, confirmed: One thing is certain: on euthanasia and assisted suicide, we will never be finished.

The Panels interim report is likely to be made public in the next few weeks.

LifeNews Note: Based in Australia, Paul Russell is a leading campaigner against euthanasia.

Read more:

Australia Pushes Euthanasia Even Before Legalizing It - LifeNews.com

Submissions against euthanasia shatter assumptions

77% of submissions to Parliaments Health Select Committee are opposed to changing the law on assisted suicide and euthanasia, an analysis found.

The Voluntary Euthanasia Society touted that the Health Select Committee received a record 21,533 submissions on the issue, indicating intense public interest in a potential law change, says Rene Joubert, executive officer of Euthanasia-Free NZ. By their own logic, the results of this analysis demonstrate an overwhelming opposition to a law change.

When New Zealanders are given the opportunity to engage with the issue, as opposed to merely responding to a single poll question, most support the current legislation. This is certainly our experience when interacting with people all over the country.

The public are understandably concerned that the legalisation of assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia poses risks to vulnerable people, which is why advocates propose safeguards. However, these safeguards are unenforceable in practice.

Polls often elicit a knee-jerk reaction, especially when the questions are emotive or leading, such as referring to a painful condition. In reality nowadays, terminally ill Kiwis do not need to die in pain. A poll question about euthanasia for pain is inappropriate.

As the authors of the January 2017 NZMJ study admitted, the item in our study included the terms painful, incurable disease and request, which may have influenced participants to express increased support for euthanasia.

The Care Alliance analysed 21,277 submissions, excluding duplicates and a small number that could not be coded. An independent research company reviewed a sample of the coded submissions and concluded with at least 95% confidence that the overall classification percentages are accurate within no more than 0.4% variation.

The results of the full analysis shatter assumptions about public attitudes to euthanasia and assisted suicide.

The assumption that the high number of submissions demonstrate overwhelming support for a law change:

The analysis found that 77.1 % of submissions (16,411) were opposed to a law change, 19.5 % (4,142) were in favour, and 3.4 % (724) were neutral or unclear on this issue.

The assumption that support of legalisation is secular and opposition to legalisation is based on religious beliefs:

63.6 % of submissions (13,539) oppose a law change and also make no reference to religion. Only 18.5% of submissions (3,934) support a law change and also make no reference to religion.

There are religiously motivated people on both sides of the debate. 14.8 % of submissions included religious arguments. The majority of these (13.5% of the total) oppose a law change, and 208 submissions (0.93% of the total) support a law change.

The assumption that submissions opposing a law change are mostly one-liners:

About 44% of submissions in opposition are between two lines and a page. Even if submissions of a certain length were to be discounted, the submissions opposing a law change would still outnumber those supporting a law change in other length categories.

The Health Select Committee conducted an investigation into ending ones life in New Zealand, in response to a petition by former MP Hon Maryan Street and 8,974 others in June 2015 requesting Parliament to investigate fully public attitudes towards the introduction of legislation which would permit medically-assisted dying in the event of a terminal illness or an irreversible condition which makes life unbearable.

After extensive media coverage about the investigation, especially during January 2016, the Committee processed 21,435 written submissions, a record number of unique submissions received on any issue to date. These, and subsequent supplementary submissions, are published on Parliaments website.

In August 2016 Dr Jane Silloway Smith analysed a random sample of these submissions and found that 78% were opposed to changing the law while 22% were in favour. The 16000voices.org.nz campaign was launched to highlight some submissions in video and written form.

ENDS

Scoop Media

Continue reading here:

Submissions against euthanasia shatter assumptions | Scoop News - Scoop.co.nz (press release)

MILAN, Italy (ChurchMilitant.com) - Italian prosecutors are ruling that Marco Cappato, an assisted suicide activist, did not violate the European Convention on Human Rights when he helped Fabiano Antoniani commit suicide in Switzerland in February.

Antoniani became a quadriplegic after a car accident in 2014 and had been seeking, since then, to be able to commit suicide. Cappato, a member of the Radical Party and an outspoken right-to-die activist, drove Antoniani to Switzerland in February where he self-administered a lethal dose of medication.

Twenty-four hours later, Cappato went to a police station in Milan, claiming he broke the law and turned himself in. Some critics suggest he was merely doing it to bring attention to his cause and that authorities had no interest in charging him with a crime.

Cappato told members of the press outside the police station, "If there will be an opportunity to defend before a judge what I've done, I can do it in the name of constitutional principles of freedom and fundamental responsibilities that are stronger than a penal code written in the Fascist era."

In Italian law, once a person is placed under investigation by authorities or in this case, turns himself in for a crime, prosecutors must examine the accusations to determine if charges are to be filed. Prosecutors concluded on May 2 that he did not violate Antoniani's "right to life," claiming assisted suicide doesn't violate the law "in the case of terminal illness or serious suffering, unbearable for the patient."

A judge must still make a final determination, and Cappato can still be charged according to article 580 of the Italian criminal code which directs, "Anyone who causes others to suicide or reinforces the others about suicide or in any way facilitates the execution, shall be punished, whether suicide occurs, by imprisonment from five to twelve years."

Switzerland, however, is not part of the European Union and assisted suicide is legal there. The situation is serving as a flashpoint to reignite the battle over whether assisted suicide should be legalized in Italy.

In April, the Italian House voted to allow a patient to refuse treatment under certain conditions, but it must still pass the Senate.

Cappato has accompanied other Italians to Switzerland for suicide. On April 19, he and Mina Welby, another right-to-die activist, assisted in the death of another Italian from Tuscany. They are both under investigation for that case as well. It's not know how the judgment of Milan's prosecutors will affect that case.

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Italian Prosecutors Declare Euthanasia Activist Didn't Violate 'Right to Life' - Church Militant