The management of available resources by the organizations responsible for meeting the needs of their citizens is an excellent indicator of the quality of a government, its contribution to the common good, and the progress of civilization.
For this reason, some revealing data on the quality of this fair and equitable distribution deserve to be analyzed.
First, we have recently learned of the current Spanish government’s rejection of the processing of the so-called “Law on Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)“, approved in the Chamber of Deputies on March 8, 2022, which has been deliberately delayed in its processing, citing budgetary problems.
ALS patients are severely dependent and eventually suffer from generalized paralysis that requires continuous and specialized care, sophisticated medical assistance, and trained personnel.
Embryos, fetuses, and neonates, who should ensure the necessary generational change in the offspring that allows for the survival of our civilization, are also severely dependent, in this case, on their mothers. They are not recipients of the necessary assistance either: the 20 million euros in aid for pregnant women – manifestly insufficient to promote Spain’s depressed birth rate – are far outweighed by the 40 million that the administration allocates to subsidize abortion in our country. According to data from the Red Madre Foundation, 8 out of 10 women who were considering having an abortion would continue their pregnancy if they received the help they need. And this need is not only economic, but also psychological, health-related, and social promotion.
But there is more. In Spain, 75,000 people die each year with intense suffering that could be easily avoided because they do not have access to palliative care, according to Dr. Marcos Gómez, an anesthesiologist and one of the world’s leading experts in palliative medicine. However, this palliative care requires significant resources, both material and human, which must be provided for periods of time, sometimes prolonged.
Palliative care is still not available in Spain for most patients who need it, a serious deficiency that does not seem to worry our leaders much, who have rushed to approve a Euthanasia Law that ends the lives of the suffering sooner and saves the state a lot of resources compared to the provision of palliative care. For a few hundred euros, a patient can be killed, a negligible amount that would be required for their care and attention during the time of their illness.
Severely dependent people, ALS patients, embryos, fetuses, neonates or children, incurable patients, and the people who bear the burden of their care on their shoulders, including pregnant women, family members, caregivers, and healthcare professionals, seem to represent an avoidable expense for the state. They do not produce, they consume.
Their neglect or direct elimination – euthanasia or abortion – seems to imply a significant saving for the public coffers, which can use these resources for other spurious purposes related to ideological positions or the maintenance of power.
Paraphrasing Jérôme Lejeune, our civilization is sick, and the main symptom of its disease is the way it treats its weakest members.
Julio Tudela Observatory of Bioethics Institute of Life Sciences Catholic University of Valencia
