Does anybody still remember Elizabeth Butler-Sloss’ case?

Six years ago, in a verdict that is certainly in the history of the UK, the judge Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, accepting the request of a tetraplegic woman, determined to shut down the machine that was keeping the latter alive.

The patient, 43 at the time, was paralyzed from the neck downdue to the rupture of a blood vase, and could not breathe without the help of machines.

The doctors who treated her stated that the shutting down of the machine was against the medical ethics code; therefore, they were against the request.

Deborah Annetts, Euthanasia Society director, considered, though, the verdict as the reasonable thing to be done, while the opponents of the so-called merciful death saw in this decision a dangerous precedent.

Those who support decisions just like the English judge understands that no one can contradict the patient. That is what the British court did. As reported at the time, the magistrated had gone to the deathbed to hear the patient say: “I want to be able to die”.  

In a stark contrast to such thought there is an important objection, which is the concrete possibility that conditions like the tetraplegic woman can be overcome with technological breakthroughs that are on the rise lately. One of the goals of the human embryo and stem cell research is exactly this one, to come up with a medical solution to this sort of condition.

Obviously nothing can be done when the person decides to take his life, ending her own life with no external aid. Suicide, before human laws, finishes right in the act. No court can convict a suicidal.

The story is different when we analyze through the divine laws, fact that is not competent to the earthly judges and goes deep down the religious matters.

According to natural law, in a Spiritist prospective, suicide is nothing but a mistake that only hurts even more the one who sought it, not solving any problem whatsoever.

Euthanasia, fortunately not accepted here in Brazil, is another mistake that a reasonable person would never advise to another one.

No one – teaches the Gospel – bears a burden hea vier than their own strength. Interrupting the probation voids its effect and the individual has to take it again.