ROME, SEPT. 23, 2004 (Zenit.org).- A group representing 35 centers and institutes of bioethics around the world has condemned the extension of euthanasia to children and babies in the Netherlands.
In a statement, the International Federation of Centers and Institutes of Bioethics of Personalist Inspiration (IFCIBPI) also appealed to the European Union to intervene to protect human rights.
The statement was in reaction to recent news about an agreement between the Dutch magistracy and the Groningen University Clinic, which would allow the practice of euthanasia on newborns and children under 12.
The IFCIBPI expressed «a negative and absolute judgment» in regard to the extension, as well as against euthanasia and assisted suicide approved in Dutch law since 2002.
The international organization made it clear that no one can dispose of human life, not even of one’s own, because the latter is a «fundamental good for the individual himself and for society.»
However, «the extension of legalization [of euthanasia] to children and newborns, where consent is not possible, is an inconceivable injustice,» the group’s Sept. 15 statement said.
«It is not only the religious sense, especially the Christian, which leads to denouncing this worsening of the negativity of the law, but it is natural reason itself and the sense of humanity that impede the reopening of debate on a real perversion of civil and health norms,» it said.
«We think that Europe, in its institutional bodies, has the legitimacy to intervene in order to impede such an interpretation of the spirit and letter of the rights of man sanctioned in the ‘Convention of the Rights of Man and Fundamental Freedoms’ (Pact of Rome, Article 2),» the document reads.
The document is signed on behalf of the IFCIBPI’s Executive Council by professor Maria Luisa di Pietro of the Catholic University of Rome; Father Gonzalo Miranda, dean of the School of Bioethics at the Regina Apostolorum Pontifical University; Bishop Elio Sgreccia, vice president of the Pontifical Academy for Life; and professor Patricio Ventura-Junca of the Catholic University of Chile.
Christian personalism is the cultural platform that united spontaneously the centers and institutes of bioethics, which gave birth a year ago to the international federation.
The IFCIBPI is open to participants of diverse religions and cultural traditions, although it makes special reference to the Catholic Church.
