Should those who euthanize be excommunicated?

Yes, argues Dr. Ed Peters, who knows a thing or three about canon law:

For some months I have been researching and writing an article on euthanasia in canon law. I hoped against hope that it might remain an academic exercise, but (to judge from, say, this report on the practice of euthanasia in Belgium ) the speed with which the Western, specifically Christian, protection of innocent life is collapsing suggests that one of my projected canonical recommendations deserves an earlier hearing than appearance in a peer-reviewed journal can afford.

Simply put, I recommend that euthanasia be made an excommunicable offense under the 1983 Code of Canon Law.

Briefly, my article will demonstrate, among other things, the following points:

1. Euthanasia, correctly understood, is unquestionably repudiated by the Catholic moral tradition (CCC  2324   and  2377 ) and is regarded by the canonical scholarly tradition as a species of homicide. 

Read the entire post on the "In the Light of the Law" blog.

Comments

[Sandra Miesel]

As I recall, when Belgium passed its euthanasia law, the nation's Catholic bishops said not a peep. It goes on in Catholic hospials without protest.

[Ed Peters]

Ah yes, Sandra, well, you're up on Dante right?, the floor of Hell was paved, how again?

[Sandra Miesel]

I believe that quote about the floor of hell being paved with the skulls of bishops is from St. Augustine. It's certainly not Dante, whose Inferno doesn't exactly have a floor.

[Ed Peters]

See, I knew you would know it better...I'd rather cite to Augustine anyway. :)

[Gail]

WHAT??

"Euthanasia is currently permitted on infants and more than half of the Belgian babies who die before they are 12 months old have been killed by deliberate medical intervention."

How many babies is that, exactly? And what is considered grounds for euthanasia?

In his memoir "Uncle Tungsten," Oliver Sacks wrote a lot of fascinating stuff about chemistry and a little, much of it disturbing, about his personal life. His mother was a midwife, and he wrote about being upset to find out that she drowned deformed and retarded babies "like kittens." The impression I got was that this was accepted practice among midwives, and they didn't think anything about it was wrong. This would have been around WWII. I wonder how prevalent it was?

Gail in Cincinnati