The virtuous response to euthanasia. Caring must become the alternative to curing

To show what makes euthanasia an affront to Catholics' most basic convictions, Catholics must be a virtuous community of interdependence, care, and hospitality. The Catholic community's challenge in opposing euthanasia is to help convert society from an aggregate of individuals pursuing their self-interests to an interdependent covenantal community. The Catholic healthcare community may contribute to the bonding that can make living interdependently liberating and life giving by being a catalyst for collaboration between the subcommunities within the Church--hospitals, schools, parishes, and religious organizations. To oppose euthanasia, caring must become the alternative to curing. Caring accepts decline and death as part of being human. A caring Catholic community can provide educational services to the wider community, focusing on managing health and assuming responsibility for treatment. In a community of hospitality the dying should be able to live as free from pain and as much in control as possible. Everyone who has contact with the sick, the elderly, and the dying has the moral responsibility to communicate that they are worthy of respect and are not being isolated or abandoned. Hospitality also must be directed to care givers. The lack of support for those who spend endless hours caring for the terminally ill has been a crucial factor in cases of euthanasia.