MOSCOW, November 15 (Sputnik) — Pope Francis has condemned euthanasia and abortion calling them a 'sin against God' and creation and warning his auditory against 'false compassion,' while addressing the Association of Italian Catholic Doctors on Saturday.
"The dominant thinking sometimes suggests a "false compassion", that which retains that it is: helpful to women to promote abortion; an act of dignity to obtain euthanasia; a scientific breakthrough to "produce" a child and to consider it to be a right rather than a gift to welcome; or to use human lives as guinea pigs presumably to save others," Pope's statement published on official Vatican media site read.
The head of the Roman Catholic Church emphasized that achievements of science should not overshadow burning ethical issues.
It should be noted, that earlier this month a Vatican bioethics official denounced the assisted suicide of terminally ill Brittany Maynard, a 29-year-old American national who was suffering from brain cancer. "This woman (took her own life) thinking she would die with dignity, but this is the error," Monsignor Ignacio Carrasco de Paula said as cited by Reuters.
Insisting that "human life is always sacred, valuable, and inviolable," Pope noted that while scientific developments made the physical healing methods more sophisticated, "in some respects it seems the ability to "take care" of the person has decreased, especially when he is sick, frail and helpless." Pope Francis stressed that there was no human life "more sacred" or "more significant" than another.
"In many places, the quality of life is related primarily to economic means, to "well-being", to the beauty and enjoyment of the physical, forgetting other more profound dimensions of existence — interpersonal, spiritual and religious," he underscored.
The head of the Roman Catholic Church urged the Italian Catholic doctors to respect life as a gift from God, adding that sometimes fidelity to Gospel requires "choices that are courageous and go against the current," although they may become "points of conscientious objection."
