Going beyond euthanasia

Going Beyond Euthanasia
“It is important to point out that suicide is a gruesome, immoral, and cowardly act”, stated the German movie director Oliver Hirschbiegel.

Before the recent Japanese nuclear catastrophe, Japan had the world’s record for highest suicide rates: more than 35,000 suicides per year. In the land of the rising sun, one human being commits suicide every 15 minutes.

Through the use of Internet, the so called “collective suicide” pacts are becoming an epidemic trend among the Japanese youth. The first incident took place in Minano, near Tokyo. The dead bodies of 4 teenage boys and 3 teenage girls were found inside a car. They had inhaled carbon monoxide, known to them as the “sweet death”. Subsequently, 6 other teens put a collective end to their lives in Fukuoka, the extreme South East of Japan.

“Suicide is the worst of crimes, because it is the only one that does not allow for regrets” stated Alejandro Dumas.

Moreover, A study conducted by the National Office of Drug Control in Washington D.C. affirms that alkaloids can produce damages such as anxiety, melancholy, psychotic outbreaks or suicide tendencies. Emma Beck, 30-year-old English actress, had an abortion in 2007. She committed suicide, and alleviated herself by leaving her parents a melancholic letter: “Life is a living hell for me, I should have never aborted. I would have been a good mother. I want to be with me baby, who needs me more than anyone else”.

We live in a culture of death, even if it is hidden behind the masks of consumerism and wellbeing. It only takes a little bit more in order to dig deep into the reality and find that this moral poverty presents itself with fierce selfishness, aggressive violence, as well as little respect for the divine gift of life. To add to all of this, hedonistic and materialistic influences take us to a natural state where everything is permitted, where unfortunately morality is nowhere to be found.

Therefore, a “culture of life” must exist in order to contrast the previous. This life culture can be found within the family, a force that would go against the “death empire”. Even though we may be living within a death culture, love barters out towards a culture of life, affirmed Monsignor Groninger to the “Osservatore Romano”. (Translated by Gianna A. Sanchez-Moretti)

Author and journalist Clemente Ferrer has led a distinguished career in Spain in the fields of publicity and press relations. He is currently President of the European Institute of Marketing.
clementeferrer3@gmail.com