Euthanasia, Suicide and Vaccines

Medicine’s defeat in euthanasia, triumph in vaccination

Do euthanasia, suicide and vaccination have anything in common? In my early years as a medical student, a professor told us: “You treat people, not wounds”. Since then I have always remembered that the sick have a special dignity. That dignity has been trampled upon by some.

Paradox of pro-euthanasia and pro-suicide laws
Euthanasia and suicide for pain relief
A doctor who “heals people and not wounds” will be faithful to Hippocrates
The vaccine that defeated smallpox, triumph of medicine

During the coronavirus pandemic, health care professionals were dedicated to their task: to cure and, if not possible, to alleviate.

The hopes and eyes of the world are still on life, on how to prolong it, on possible vaccines. In the midst of this effort to save lives, some governments are looking in another direction and are introducing the possibility of a doctor taking your life “ex officio”, with what they call euthanasia or “peaceful death” or “assisted suicide”. It would be an act of compassion: a few milligrams injected… and that’s it. The subject is discussed, as if it were indifferent to take away pain with death.

The goal of the vaccine against the coronavirus is still far away. It was to distribute more than 300 million doses before April 2021, so that the impact would be felt. And it was achieved. A message of hope and optimism is conveyed: few adverse effects, good results in the most vulnerable groups, starting with the elderly.

And all this added to the interest that the covid-19 vaccine should reach countries with fewer resources and those most in need. It is a good for humanity that requires thinking big, without giving way to “pharmaceutical marginality”, reaching the entire planet, as Pope Francis has said. See the note of the Vatican Commission: Vaccine for all: 20 points for a fairer and healthier world.

Paradox of pro-euthanasia and pro-suicide laws

The supposed goal of euthanasia is to alleviate the suffering and pain of terminally ill patients. However, as is evident in Holland and Belgium, this goal seems to be achieved by taking out of circulation uncomfortable patients who burden the state and taxpayers’ pockets; the elderly and children who give little hope of being “useful”. Old age is transformed into illness; disability or limitations into an unbearable burden. The idea is sown that, if you do not produce, you are in the way.

In pursuit of euthanasia, freedom is wielded: each person decides what he or she wants to do with his or her life and death. The emphasis is placed on the fact that you decide and you are encouraged to decide what costs less: it could cure you and relieve you, but what for?

If they talk about coronavirus, on the other hand, they force you to wear a mask and get vaccinated. With which I agree. It costs less than treating the sick and the profit that the pharmaceutical companies will get is not negligible.

Euthanasia and suicide for pain relief

Some, with good intentions, offer euthanasia as a solution to pain and suffering. Perhaps what escapes them is what every physician observes: few patients ask to bring forward the moment of death, if they are cared for, if they are accompanied, if their pain is relieved with existing drugs, if they are made aware that they are still useful and loved.

In the end, the promoters of euthanasia focus on wounds and not on people. It would help them to know a book like the Oxford Handbook of Palliative Care, which delves with scientific rigor into an effective and key specialty in the world’s leading medical schools.

A doctor who “heals people and not wounds” will be faithful to Hippocrates

The father of medicine stated: “With innocence and purity I will guard life and my art”. The art of finding effective treatments and the art of helping one’s fellow man to live well or die well.

This ideal inspired Cicely Saunders, a British nurse, to spend her days developing palliative care and helping those suffering from incurable ailments to cope as comfortably and with dignity as possible.

And this same ideal shone centuries earlier in an English physician, Edward Jenner. Moved by his desire to serve, he traveled the fields near Berkeley helping the peasants and looking for a remedy for smallpox. This disease, which in the 18th century in Europe was killing about half a million people a year, had a mortality rate of 80% in children, and left many survivors blind or with disfiguring lesions on their faces.

In his travels through the farms, Jenner noticed the pustular lesions that appeared on some people who milked cows affected by what was known as cowpox. He was struck by the fact that they were similar to the lesions caused by a much more serious disease, human smallpox.

In May 1796, he took material from these “harmless” lesions and introduced it with wounds into the skin of a child. After a few trials, he found that the child became immune to smallpox. Further experiments proved the efficacy of the method and mass “vaccinations” were organized: a new name emerged with a clear reference to to its origin, but above all it was:

The vaccine that defeated smallpox, triumph of medicine.

In May 1980, the World Health Organization announced the global eradication of smallpox.

Jenner was showered with offers to commercially exploit his discovery and enrich himself. However, he generously gave it to the human community, joining his knowledge to that of so many other exemplary physicians. In the midst of his work he said to a friend: “When I consider the multitude of men who have already been able to enjoy this benefit, my satisfaction is very great. And so great is my gratitude to Him who I know to be the Author of every blessing, that I can hardly express it”.

Wenceslao Vial

Questions and answers on euthanasia