By: Dr Metod Berlec
Dear readers of Demokracija! Slovenia stands on the brink of an existential, civilisational turning point. On Sunday, November 23, we will decide on the scandalous law on assisted voluntary dying – a law unanimously rejected by the medical profession.
It has been forced upon us by the association Srebrna nit together with the ruling left‑wing coalition (Freedom Movement, SD, and Levica) under Robert Golob. No medical organisation supports this controversial law. On the contrary: the Slovenian Medical Academy, the National Medical Ethics Commission, the Slovenian Medical Association, the Medical Chamber of Slovenia, the Chair of Medical Ethics at the Faculty of Medicine, and numerous organisations in the field of palliative care warn that this is a dangerous experiment that threatens the foundations of medicine and the dignity of human life. Yet the arrogant ruling coalition approved the law in parliament despite numerous objections and counterarguments, forcing more than 40,000 signatures to be collected for a referendum under the slogan “Against the poisoning of patients.”
This law, which intrudes upon the deepest ethical foundations, was drafted without the participation of those who will bear the consequences – doctors. And by citing “unbearable suffering” as a criterion without defining it clearly, it opens the door to abuse and social pressure on the most vulnerable. The president of the Slovenian Catholic Doctors’ Association, Janez Dolinar, told our magazine that foreign experience clearly shows such legislation “inevitably means enormous pressure on the seriously ill, the elderly, the frail, the poor, and even on parents of children with rare diseases.” Slovenia needs the development of palliative medicine and care instead, because “when a patient or elderly person has good palliative care, no one wishes to die.”
Dear readers, let us not be deceived: this law is not an expression of compassion, but a shameless legalisation of execution. It is a dangerous game with life that would place Slovenia alongside decadent states where euthanasia has already become a social norm and where, under the guise of equality, the number of deaths relentlessly increases. Our task is clear: protect life, protect patients, protect nurses and doctors.
On Sunday, we must go to the referendum and vote AGAINST the law on assisted voluntary dying. In doing so, we will make it clear that Slovenia does not need a law of death, but a law on palliative care that truly helps the suffering. The goal of our society must be dignified life until natural death – not legally enabled death. Your vote AGAINST will also, as I wrote in the previous issue of Demokracija, be a vote against Golob’s harmful government, against the left‑wing coalition of Freedom Movement, SD, and Levica, which is leading Slovenia in the wrong direction: toward the destruction of the national state, toward regression, and toward general collapse.