FAKE NEWS: Romania has taken the first step towards legalizing euthanasia

FAKE NEWS: Romania has taken the first step towards legalizing euthanasia
© EPA-EFE/TOLGA AKMEN   |   Anti-assisted dying campaigners gather outside the UK Houses of Parliament as MPs prepare to debate over changing the law on assisted dying, in London, Britain, 29 April 2024.

The law regulating patients’ rights to medical services for pain therapy will lead to the legalization of euthanasia, according to a well-known conspiracy website.

The state with the right to life and death

NEWS: The plenary session of the Chamber of Deputies on Monday adopted a draft law according to which insured persons have the right to access medical services for pain therapy. [...] In Western countries that adopted such laws, euthanasia is considered the highest phase of pain therapy, where patients, or in some cases members of the family, opt for assisted suicide in order to end chronic and incurable pain. In some countries, the state euthanizes individuals in the absence of the patients’ coherent decision, or in the absence of the family’s consent, leaving room for possible abuses.

NARRATIVE: Under pressure from the West, Romania will legalize euthanasia, a profoundly anti-Christian practice.

BACKGROUND: According to strictly scientific definitions, euthanasia is the deliberate act of ending the life of an individual suffering from an incurable condition or terminal illness, with the intention of alleviating their pain and suffering. The topic is extremely controversial, due to multiple moral, legal or religious considerations. For this reason, euthanasia-related legislation varies from one country to the next. Right now, discussions are ongoing in Romania about euthanasia, supported by people and organizations that demand the legalization of this procedure, but they are somewhat marginal and do not reflect the opinion of the majority population. In Europe, euthanasia is legal in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Spain and Portugal, as well as in Canada, New Zealand or Colombia. This data, however, is used by Russian propaganda to justify its narratives that depict the West as a “land of perdition”, ruled by Satanists, in stark opposition to Russia, the land of genuine Christianity, which enjoys divine protection. The narrative aligns with those who claim that the globalist elites have a well-defined plan to mass exterminate the population on the planet, better known as the Great Health Reset.

To better understand the term, a clear distinction should be made between euthanasia and assisted suicide, which represents the action of medical staff providing the patient with the means necessary for him to cause his own death, the distinctive element being not the means used, but in terms of agency. Practically, in the case of assisted suicide, the physician’s assistance is usually restricted to writing a prescription for a lethal dose of the medication.

At the same time, universally accepted medical procedures for terminally ill patients are generically known as “pain therapy”, consisting of medical services for the diagnosis, treatment and monitoring of patients with acute or chronic pain in order to improve their quality of life by controlling or removing pain.

The absurd link between “pain therapy” and euthanasia was made by a well-known conspiracy website promoting several false narratives which “predicted” the Russian invasion of Ukraine about a year before it took place, and which has since been constantly posting anti-Western messages bordering the absurd, such as those claiming that anti-Covid vaccines shorten men's lives by exactly 24 years, or that the “globalist cabal” will trigger a water crisis to establish its own world government. The website is associated with Sorin Roșca Stănescu, a journalist sentenced for corruption and a former collaborator of the Security, who for several years has been promoting obviously anti-Western and pro-Russian rhetoric in his media articles. Recently, he has circulated Moscow's narrative related to the presence on the territory of Ukraine of a regiment of the French Foreign Legion, which is allegedly fighting Russia.

PURPOSE: Promoting the anti-Western discourse, provoking and amplifying social tensions.

Euthanasia is not part of “pain therapy”, but a substitute

WHY THE NARRATIVE IS FALSE: Like assisted suicide, euthanasia is a completely different procedure compared to palliative care for the terminally ill, which seeks only to improve the quality of life for terminally ill patients, not hasten the end of their lives. The practice translates into administering treatments to relieve pain and other painful symptoms. In some regards, the two medical procedures are diametrically opposed.

Thus, palliative care and pain therapy address symptoms beyond physical pain. Patients facing a serious illness may feel hopeless and depressed, as if their lives have lost all meaning. Addressing their psychological, emotional and spiritual issues is central to palliative care. In opposition, assisted suicide and euthanasia do not alleviate any of these problems, but rather exacerbate them. Studies carried out in the United States have shown that about half of patients who apply for assisted suicide change their mind once they start receiving palliative care.

The new legislative proposal cannot be seen as “paving the ground” for the legislation on euthanasia or assisted suicide because, under the said law, patients would acquire (at least in theory) the right to access medical services not just for pain therapy, but even for curing the disease, preventing its complications, and for recovery after the disease, if an innovative treatment succeeds in eliminating it. At the same time, the law stipulates that patients who benefit from medical services for pain therapy ought to be treated within “evidence-based medicine, by means of an integrated and cross-disciplinary approach based on medical practice guidelines, national medical practice protocols, operational medical practice protocols or therapeutic protocols”. Thus, in the absence of a legislative provision considering legal euthanasia, distorting the purpose of these medical services represents a crime and is punished according to the Criminal Code.

GRAIN OF TRUTH: In some situations, giving pain relievers to terminal patients can shorten their lives.

  • Publication / Media:
    ZIUANEWS.RO
  • Date of publication:
    03/06/2024
  • Target audience:
    Conspiracists, ultra-religious, ultra-conservative, anti-Western, anti-European readers, sovereigntists, nationalists
  • Amplification:
    220.RO, social media
  • Key narrative:
    Romania will legalize euthanasia.
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