Slovenia: religious leaders on assisted suicide, “ethically unacceptable measure. Invest in palliative care”

The Pentecostal Church, the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Slovenia, the Islamic Community in the Republic of Slovenia, the Slovenian Jewish Community, the Catholic Church in Slovenia, the Macedonian Orthodox Church and the Serbian Orthodox Church say in their joint statement that “the legal introduction of the option of assisted suicide would mean an indirect encouragement to patients to end their own lives, which is totally unacceptable to us”. “This is an ethically unacceptable measure to help terminally ill people in our society”. Second, “we must strive both to ensure that terminally ill people do not feel like they are a burden to society, or that they are useless, and to make everyone aware of the value and dignity of every life, including vulnerable life. Society’s resources must be invested in a holistic view of the person and in the development of palliative care”. Third, “every effort must be made to ensure that the value of human life, which is a gift from the Creator, is increasingly respected and promoted in our society. The bill on voluntary end of life is the complete opposite of this effort”. The fourth point demands that “the bill on voluntary end of life be immediately withdrawn from the parliamentary process”, that “a strategic, thoughtful and wide-ranging debate be initiated on these issues” and that “long-term, humane and dignified responses be found to the problem of human suffering”.

The final document is signed by Daniel Grabar, superintendent of the Pentecostal Church; Rev. Leon Novak, Bishop of the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession; Nevzet Porić, Mufti of the Islamic Community; Boris Čerin-Levi, President of the Jewish Community; Mgr Andrej Saje, President of the Slovenian Bishops’ Conference; Dimitar Gazinkovski, Assistant Archpriest for Slovenia – Macedonian Orthodox Church; Aleksandar Obradović, Assistant Archpriest for Slovenia – and by the Serbian Orthodox Church.
Valentina Bombelli