Students’ council calls for mature national debate on euthanasia

The university student’s council (KSU) has called for a mature national debate on euthanasia.

Without taking a stance in favour or against it, the KSU said in a policy paper that dialogue on euthanasia is greatly lacking in the national forum and that the debate should focus on “the search for meaning, the respect for our dignity as human beings and the safeguarding of the common good of society”.

“At the root of both positions [in favour and against] there is the respect of our dignity as human beings. While the disagreement lays in the manner in which this dignity is to be respected, we collectively agree and urge that any discussion on the matter of euthanasia should continually respect and seek to uphold the inherent dignity of every human being – irrespective of sex, age, race, creed or social class.”

The KSU also urged MPs not to seek political mileage out of the euthanasia debate, but rather to make an informed decision following consultation with medical, ethical and psychological professionals.

Opposition leader Simon Busuttil in January ruled out the possibility of an internal debate on euthanasia, arguing that he “is of the firm opinion that there is a fundamental right to life but no right to die”.

In February 2016, Alternattiva Demokratika chairman Arnold Cassola told MaltaToday that while the Green Party has no position on euthanasia, it has no intention to discuss it. 

However, there have been conflicting declarations regarding the Labour Party’s stance towards the issue. MEP and former Prime Minister Alfred Sant has come out in favour of euthanasia, but during a recent parliamentary committee sitting, government Whip Godfrey Farrugia insisted that Labour was fully opposed to euthanasia. 

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has said he is personally against the introduction of euthanasia but has called for an honest and non-partisan debate after meeting ALS sufferer and euthanasia campaigner Joe Magro. “He told me that if he is not allowed euthanasia by law, then when the time comes he will kill myself,” he said. “Those words shocked me as a politician and as a person, and I was left at a loss as to how to respond.”

The Labour Party’s youth branch FZL recently came out in favour of euthanasia, warning that terminally ill people who are denied access to euthanasia could be driven to commit suicide.

“Sweeping the issue under the carpet for so long is not a solution for these situations,” FZL president Alex Saliba told MaltaToday. “We do not believe that life is measured only by the number of years lived, but by the quality of life.”