Boycotting social media Carmel Sciberras of Naxxar writes: Boycotting the manipulative social media will free you from: FOMO (fear of missing out); eye strain from excessive screen time; wasting time looking at irrelevancies, stupidities and fake news; and developing mental health problems. It will also help you develop real, face-to-face relationships. Is it worth it? Many think it is. But are you brave enough to free yourself from this addiction? Bishops’ misinformation Eddie Privitera of Naxxar writes: The bishops issued a pastoral letter on the proposed guidelines to voluntary assisted euthanasia released by the government. While such a pastoral letter was expected, what I found objectionable were certain scaremongering statements; such as depicting doctors who agree with voluntary assisted euthanasia under very strict conditions, as if they are “killers”. In reality, they should be seen as compassionate doctors who accept their patients’ request to terminate the unbearable and irreversible suffering, which no palliative care – as the bishops indicated – can solve or diminish. Among a number of objectionable statements, I found the following the most reprehensible: “Life begins to be considered a burden rather than a gift.” Who can ever consider life, or, preferably, existence, in such a desperate irreversible situation as “a gift”? “Medical duty to care may even become a duty to kill.” One kills someone when they take the life of that person without their consent. When a doctor accepts a patient’s plea, and helps to terminate his or her suffering from a harrowing and irreversible medical condition, that doctor would be doing an act of mercy and not “killing”! “A killing of only one person remains a killing,” said the bishops. Agreed. But what doctors would be doing is not “killing” anyone but helping patients who voluntarily ask their doctor to legally help them terminate their unbearable and irreversible suffering. In no way can such an act of compassion be termed “killing”. “Someone considering ending his or her life should not receive from the state the assistance to commit suicide.” The bishops are here misinforming the faithful. The state is proposing helping only those patients who qualify under very restrictive conditions (too restrictive in my view) and not “someone considering ending his or her life”. “Many doctors recognise their responsibility to remain faithful to the oath they took to save life and not help end it.” Again, the bishops have resorted to misinformation. This voluntary assisted euthanasia would be available only to those patients whose life cannot be saved, as would have been declared so by a number of doctors and specialists. Now comes the bishops’ contradiction: “A patient has the right to refuse extraordinary medical treatment (to prolong life) that causes unbearable suffering and offers no hope.” Such withdrawal of medication not only results in the demise of the patient but can add much more suffering due to very serious withdrawal side effects that can follow. But, for the bishops, this is not a patient committing “suicide”; nor is it a doctor “killing” a patient; for the bishops this is a “right”. So, monsignors, why not also for voluntary assisted euthanasia when there is “unbearable suffering and no hope”?