Editor’s note. The following comes from the Parliamentary Network for Critical Issues (PNCI):
Bishop Juan Vicente Cordoba
Colombia’s Health Minister Alejandro Gaviría has established guidelines for euthanasia to permit ‘competent’ adults with a terminal illness to request death by lethal injection. The Health Ministry’s action follows an order by the Supreme Court to act on a 1997 ruling that declared euthanasia a constitutional right. The Catholic Church, which operates some of the most reliable and safest hospitals in the country, strongly protested the move. The head of the Colombian Catholic bishops’ conference, Bishop Juan Vicente Cordoba Cordoba said “we will proceed to close all our hospitals if they insist on forcing us to kill.”
Bishop Cordoba also called for dialogue and a vote in the legislature on the issue: “The court does not make laws, nor is it in their jurisdiction to regulate a department of the government. Only the Congress of the Republic makes laws. They took an unconstitutional shortcut, and we cannot accept it from a juridical point of view.