The famous call for help "Save our souls!" often sounds like "Help die easily!" But what do we free from pain: a suffering soul or an exhausted body? Whom are we calling for help? And what is euthanasia - an unselfish act of mercy or a paid complicity in a crime?
What if…
For many decades, Europeans have not been able to decide on the answers. On one side of the scale is the right of a person to control his own life. On the other - the Hippocratic oath and the commandment: "Thou shalt not kill."
What if a person is unable to ask to be given a lethal injection? What if pain relievers can relieve the suffering of the hopelessly sick? And if a person does not realize, is his desire to die final? There are a lot of these “and ifs”. There is no general recipe. In each case, there is a separate story and destiny, which means a special decision.
Worthy to die
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Karlheinz Wichmann, president of the German Society for Palliative Medicine, believes that "giving a person the opportunity to die with dignity is what active euthanasia is all about."
Here it is, the word. Dignity. The motto of the Dignitas Association is "To live worthy - die worthily". It has been operating in Forche, canton Zurich, since May 17, 1998, when it was founded by Ludwig Minelli. The association is called the death factory. Meanwhile, all those who passed away called Dignitas a savior.
How much did Dignitas agree to solve their main problem? Minnelli considers such questions indecent. But from unofficial sources it is known: to get to the clinic, you need to transfer 5.9 thousand euros to its account. In this case, who guarantees that Dignitas not only helps people to die, but stimulates their movement towards their own grave …
Euthanasia as a business
Euthanasia has become a commercial industry in Switzerland. Dignitas organizes all inclusive tours: provides hotel, medical staff, documents, poison. The client must prove that his decision is unshakable. Everything is reflected in the documents. But it is precisely the detailed logistics of the movement towards death that raises doubts among many doctors.
When Ludwig Minelli founded Dignitas, he had no assets. After 10 years of the company's existence, in 2008, according to taxes, he had 2 million Swiss francs. Where from? Dignitas does not publish budget amounts or a single calculation report. Nobody knows how much money is in Dignitas and what it is used for. Suspicions led to the fact that the European press began to call Minelli not a fighter against death, but a fighter for death.
Europe is preoccupied with a seemingly purely Swiss problem for one reason. A special tourist vector is developing: people come to die. They believe that if there is a quality of life, then there must be a quality of death.
If in 2000 33 people were accompanied to death, five of them were from abroad, then by the end of 2012 the number of those who had lost their lives, since 1998, amounted to 1496 people. At least five thousand more were next in line, and the number of countries from which applications are received has grown to 69.
To the other world legally
A company helping to die needs to find out whether the desire to leave this world is real or whether doctors will learn about it from the words of relatives. The second aspect: is the patient conscious? Further, a doctor - usually a family doctor - issues a prescription for a lethal medicine in an appropriate dosage on the basis of documentation. Then the date of the euthanasia is agreed. Everything seems to be scheduled.
But here's the paradox: the study showed that those who received the green light for suicide in 16% of cases are not ready to accept the version of their own death for the second time. In some years, up to 86% of successful suicide prevention was observed.
In connection with such circumstances, assisted suicide occurs in the presence of relatives and at least two witnesses. After the final interview procedure is completed, during which the patient gets the last opportunity to change the decision, the act of leaving is recorded on a video camera - this is proof that everything was according to the law.
Fell asleep and did not wake up
"If death, then - instant, if the wounds - small" - this is from the song "Farewell Komsomolskaya". A person is afraid not of leaving, but of pain. There is a story about a wonderful death among the people: they fell asleep and did not wake up. It is implemented by doctors. Experts distinguish two types of euthanasia. Passive - when doctors, after making sure that the patient's personality does not exist, turn off life support systems. And active - the administration of drugs to the dying person, leading to death without suffering.
However, occasionally a request comes from a healthy person. Minnelli was approached by the wife of Canadian Craig Evert, who in the spring of 2009 came to a Zurich clinic to die. She said that her husband was very dear to her, she could not imagine life without him, so she would like to leave with him. In Dignitas, finding the ladies' arguments convincing, for the first time agreed to help a man who was not a hopeless patient.
The idea of euthanasia took over Europe gradually. The widespread discussion of the problem of quick and easy death began about 60 years ago. Only 20 years ago, the Danish Association for Voluntary Euthanasia was established. The trend of the spread of euthanasia is indicated by law. First, the Netherlands legalized voluntary death (1984), then Belgium, Luxembourg and Switzerland. In Italy and France, discussions are continuing on this score. The discussion has been going on for the longest time in Spain, where back in 1973 the "Right to a Dignified Death" association was established.
In February 2014, Belgium became the first country in the world to apply euthanasia law to children.
The patient's fate is in the hands of the authorities
In the Netherlands a few years ago the book “Ways to Humane Death of Your Own Will” was published. Physician Peter Admiral discusses various methods of suicide. His book is an instruction on how to do it technically, some say. Nothing of the kind, others argue, this is a suicide tutorial.
Meanwhile, the doctors of the Dignitas clinic say: despite the instructions, often suicides do not know how to commit suicide: for 50 attempts, there is one successful one. And the same doctors pump out the unfortunate.
In France, the discussion about the fate of Vincent Humbert continues. On September 24, 2000, he was involved in a car accident. It led to paralysis of the limbs. The guy was blind and mute. He had hearing and the ability to move his right thumb. This was the connection with the world.
Vincent asked to kill him. However, euthanasia is illegal in France. Vincent wrote a letter to President Chirac. There was no answer. He asked his mother to fulfill the request. Lilia tried to kill her son by injecting sodium phenobarbital. He then fell into a coma and his mother was arrested.
The situation was saved by the book "I ask the right to die", which Vincent had previously dictated to his mother. In it, he told why life is unbearable and why he wants to die. When the book was published, Lilia was released. And a day later, the life support equipment was finally turned off.
As we can see, not only those thirsty for euthanasia suffer, but also their relatives.
Last will
The proportion of patients, including those incurable, is growing in Germany. But no one thought that more than 10 million people consider themselves doomed - today and in the near future. This is every eighth inhabitant of the country! They drew up “patient orders”, which became effective from September 1, 2009.
In the orders, certified by a notary, the patients stated their will in case of fatal illness or disability. The main argument of supporters of euthanasia is that an adult has the right to dispose of life at his own discretion. Including stop it. Opponents of euthanasia stand their ground. We must try to dissuade the person, instill in him hope, the will to live.
But how can euthanasia be reconciled with Christian morality that condemns suicide? How to avoid abuse? Say, to protect a person from the evil will of the heirs? Now, relatives are tired of caring for the old man and waiting for an inheritance, then you can convince him that euthanasia is the best way out in his situation. Old people are dependent, suggestible. So where is she, the line between the legal and the unlawful?..
Alexander MELAMED