It’s important to remember all three truisms when musing on the current euthanasia debate. It’s very important to remember euthanasia is not turning off machines or increasing dosages of pain relief; euthanasia is administering lethal injections. In the majority of cases, these injections are self-administered and so are still a form of suicide. The status of the remaining minority is too confronting to admit.

At a point where suicide is at a ten-year high and female suicides in particular have unbelievably doubled in this short time, we can see how this debate has gained momentum and how, once legalised, will be abused.

Nobody wants to see a loved one suffer. No one. We are all emotional when it comes to this subject. All of us. So I believe Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews took an unfair advantage by using his father’s death as his motivation for pushing euthanasia. The ignored paradox in all of this is that his father had a very good death by the premier’s own admission.

What makes us human, as opposed to only animal, is not so much our intelligence, but rather our love for each other, in particular, our compassion for each other. Snakes and spiders eat each other; humans prefer to keep each other alive and safe, even strangers, even if they’re weak, even if they’re dying. Euthanasia is thus not evolution; euthanasia to devolution. By assisting those during suffering that we permeate the most important virtue of all; Love and without love we would be only animal. 

Yes, we humans can be selfish creatures, but we fight against it and reach our full potential by suffering those who suffer. Some of the strongest bonds are established during times of suffering. Have you ever mused on the fact that our closest bonds tend to be with people we have endured dependence or interdependence with? A baby’s constant needs and screams are such a handful for a new mother and can even test her sanity, but this liability creates an asset and forms a lifelong love. If she passes the liabilities on to another, this weakens the bond.

I once lost my job, colleagues and accommodation and not for something I did wrong but for a viewpoint I sincerely held. My conscience was free, but that’s pretty much where the freedom ended. I had nowhere to go and nowhere to live. The people who took me in during this lonely, painful and vulnerable time have found a place in my heart that cannot be destroyed. You cannot build muscle without pain and love isn’t love if it’s never been tested. Euthanasia or “mercy” killing will literally decrease the very meaning of life, which is love and make a public mockery of the very reason the health service was set up for in the first place. 

In the beautiful 2016 movie La La Land (which almost won Best Picture at the Academy Awards … for a few minutes anyway) is the beautiful song City of Stars that sings: “A look in somebody's eyes, to light up the skies, to open the world and send it reeling. A voice that says, I'll be here, and you'll be alright.” The song won Best Original Song at the Golden Globes and Academy Awards. Do these words only inspire us when the lovers singing are young and healthy?

FATHER BRENDAN LEE

Twitter: @frbrendanelee