By Patrick B. Craine
SEOUL, South Korea, July 15, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Agence France-Presse (AFP), the oldest and one of the largest news agencies in the world, may have erroneously reported that South Korea has legalized euthanasia, says the leader of a Canadian-based anti-euthanasia group.
While the headline for the AFP story declares “S.Korea legalises euthanasia for terminally ill,” the article in fact reports only that the South Korean health ministry has approved guidelines for the removal of life support from terminally-ill patients, after receiving their consent.
“From the information in the report, there’s nothing indicating anything about euthanasia,” said Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.
Schadenberg noted that removing “life support” treatment in the way reported by AFP is not intrinsically evil and is done in North America every day, usually ethically, though sometimes not. It certainly does not amount to euthanasia, he said. He said that euthanasia, on the other hand, is “the direct and intentional killing of a person for reasons of mercy.”
If the guidelines do in fact allow the removal of food or fluids from terminally-ill patients, that could amount to euthanasia, he said. However, Schadenberg observed that because the article mentions nothing about these issues he must presume that euthanasia has not been legalized.
Nevertheless, he also admitted that, “It’s possible that the guidelines include more than I would actually support.”
“But nonetheless, is it actually euthanasia or not? The answer’s no.”
In a letter to AFP today, Schadenberg excoriated the news agency for spreading confusion on the already-complex issue. “You need to be more careful with your reporting because these ethical issues affect many people and if you incorrectly report on an issue you create confusion,” he wrote.
In an interview with LifeSiteNews, Schadenberg suggested that the article may even have been intended to “deliberately confuse the public.”
Contact AFP here.