Judges in Belgium have fined a Catholic nursing home for refusing to perform euthanasia on a lung cancer patient on its premises.
The St Augustine rest home in Diest was ordered to pay €6,000 after it stopped doctors from giving a lethal injection to Mariette Buntjens.
Days later, the 74-year-old woman was instead taken by ambulance to her private address to die “in peaceful surroundings”.
Mrs Buntjens’ family later sued the nursing home for causing their mother “unnecessary mental and physical suffering”.
A civil court in Louvain upheld the complaint and fined the home €3,000 and ordered it to pay compensation of €1,000 to each of Mrs Buntjens’s three adult children.
During the hearing, three judges decided unanimously that “the nursing home had no right to refuse euthanasia on the basis of conscientious objection”. The test case interprets Belgian law to mean that only individual medical professionals – and not hospitals or care homes – have the right to refuse euthanasia requests.
The judgment could spell the closure of scores of Catholic-run nursing and care homes across Belgium because the Church has stated explicitly that it will not permit euthanasia under any circumstances. Sylvie Tack, the lawyer for the family, told Het Nieuwsblad, a Belgian newspaper: “It is now black and white that an institution cannot intervene in an agreement between doctor and patient. Only a physician can invoke conscientious objection. This is an important precedent for the entire industry.”
Robert Flello, the Labour MP for Stoke-on-Trent South, and a Catholic, said the judgment was “worrying”, adding: “There is a risk that care homes will now close across Belgium.”
US ruling sparks debate on future of abortion law
Pro-life and pro-abortion groups have offered different interpretations of what a Supreme Court ruling on abortion restrictions will mean in practice.The ruling, delivered last week, said Texas abortion clinics did not have to comply with standards of walk-in surgical centres and that their doctors were not required to have admitting privileges at local hospitals.
Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said the court ruling was the first step in opening the door to restore more access to abortion. But Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life, said: “There may be some laws that are turned down because of what the Supreme Court did, but by and large the laws are going to stay.
“The abortion industry wants to set up this mirage that no laws are going to stand and they will try to intimidate or scare pro-life legislators,” she told the US Catholic News Service.
While the ruling was a “step backward”, she said, she noted that it did not challenge prohibitions on abortions after 20 weeks. Such legislation has been passed in 14 states so far.
Faithful venerate English martyrs
hundreds of Catholics crowded into the Cathedral of St Paul in Minnesota last week to venerate the relics of St Thomas More and St John Fisher. The relics were on a national tour as part of the US bishops’ Fortnight for Freedom.John Boyle, professor of Catholic studies at the University of St Thomas, said: “Goodness, virtue and holiness: this is the secret to lives and martyrdom.”
