AD rejects euthanasia, proposes living will for terminal patients

Green party Alternattiva Demokratika has vehemently opposed the legislation of euthanasia, instead calling for a debate on the introduction of a living will for Maltese patients.

AD chairman Arnold Cassola claimed that a debate on euthanasia would be “very premature” and equivalent to a discussion on assisted suicide.

A living will (or biological will) would allow patients to give explicit instructions to physicians and relatives not to administer extraordinary measures of treatment, such as life-support equipment, to them if their condition degenerates.

“A biological will would allow a person, when still in possession of one’s intellectual facilities, to declare what kind of treatment to accept and whether to prolong or not in artificial ways a life that would otherwise naturally have come to an end,” Cassola said in a statement. “The standards of palliative care should also be looked into to guarantee dignified end-of-life care for everyone.”

"Whilst AD does not agree with the termination of life through euthanasia, it is in favour of the drawing up of 'living wills' or 'biological wills'."

Last week, ALS sufferer Joe Magro appeared in front of parliament’s Family Affairs Committee to demand the legislation of euthanasia for patients suffering from terminal illnesses.

“I want to live, not simply exist,” he told MPs, warning that he would rather commit suicide than go through the latter stages of ALS.

However, another ALS sufferer Bjorn Formosa – who made headlines when he founded the charity NGO ALS Malta last year – told the Malta Independent that a debate on the living will should precede one of euthanasia.  

“In the past, before I got sick, I always used to empathise with people who are suffering from an illness. I would think to myself ‘I couldn’t live that way’. Ironically not that I got sick, I see things differently. Now I would do anything to remain alive, regardless of my condition,” he said.