Jaume Vives, manager of the “Vividores” [“Lifers”] project, gave an interview to Exaudi to talk about his campaign against the Euthanasia Law approved by Spain’s Government, the meaning of suffering in a person’s life, the culture of death implanted in society and the value of the family for the future.
“Vividores” is a project to talk about life and death, joys and troubles, and to reflect on the meaning of pain and suffering. “There is much talk in the society in which we live about helping to die, about a dignified death, and about good dying. We, however, want to talk about helping to live, about a dignified life and about good living,” explains its Website.
On that site, full interviews can be found with 12 people that give their testimony, as well as four videos of experts on the subject, a talk on euthanasia with Manuel Martinez-Selles, President of Madrid’s College of Physicians, and a section on the latest news on the subject.
Here is the full interview with Jaume Vives.
Exaudi: When did the “Vividores” project start?
Vives: It started more or less a year ago, at the end of February. Propagandists’ Catholic Action (PCA), which promotes the “Vividores” project, was going to address the subject of life, that is, something much broader, not only to defend natural death but all that which happens in between. This is something that we often forget.
Just at that moment, the Government decided to open another front with the approval of the Euthanasia Law. It was then that the PCA decided to allocate part of its resources, planned for the subject in general, to something more concrete as euthanasia.
Here is where I come in, at the end of February — almost March. We prepared a campaign with a group of friends of the Association. We studied the problem, what was happening, and how we could explain it. It’s true that before the Government presented the Law, we were already thinking of addressing the subject of euthanasia; however, when they started this war, we were obliged to focus more on it.
Exaudi: Is it a strictly social project or does it act as a political platform?
Vives: No. It’s a project promoted by the Propagandists’ Catholic Action and organized and executed by a group of friends who have enticed other people. In this sense, it is a social platform. We have had contacts with the political realm to influence the Law, but it isn’t a political platform as such.
Exaudi: How is it that Jaume Vives ends up fighting for this?
Vives: The story is quite long and I’ll try to summarize it. It all began a few months ago during a dinner to talk about pornography. Alfonso Bullon, PCA’s President called me and asked me if I could come to live in Madrid — I am from Barcelona –, to prepare a campaign to address euthanasia, to focus on the subject, and have it reach the society. He found out that a new law was being discussed. And, so I’m here.
Exaudi: Lifers and Suffering
Vives: The lifers are the testimonies that can be found on the Web. The concept one has of a vividor is that of a person that lives luxuriously, “like a king,” and for whom everything is great. We wanted to give another meaning to this term. Lifer is a person that lives, but does so with everything, without censuring anything.
Sometimes, it’s much fun to live, at others not so much. However, one always suffers. The lifer is someone who lives aware of that reality and assumes it. It’s someone who has been able to live a full life despite the pain he might have experienced.
That’s why lifers are the protagonists. What we wanted to do was something prior to the Law, a pre-debate, which has never been held, about the meaning of pain, suffering, sickness, and death.
This is a shared experience we all have, to try to do away with suffering in our lives, be it physical, psychic, of a family nature, or any other sort. And no matter how much we try, we don’t succeed. Given that we suffer, and will always do so, it means we must assume suffering and live with it.
The campaign has addressed this, and that’s why the lifers are the experts, people who have lived very grave events. That’s why, if at some point I have to live something like that, I would like to do so as they did. Therefore, if we had had that debate and had been able to reflect on it, not now, 20 years too late, but several decades ago, when this poison began to be sold, the issue of euthanasia would have been very different. It would probably never have been proposed. That’s why we had that debate on the meaning of pain. We think we can live without suffering, totally comfortable, when we so wish and as we wish.
Exaudi: Why does it seem that we have a politics of death. There is no education to accept reality, the fact that we are frail beings. There is no openness to life, family, and love in response to our own or another’s weakness.
Vives: Truth is a mystery. I have some intuitions, but they are only that. For instance, in the case of euthanasia, I understand that there are several reasons why a government would prefer it to palliative care because it’s much simpler and more economic.
It’s a thing of a day, of a few euros, whereas the measure of care calls for not only paying for care but also for lodging and other expenditures, for many years and for much money. I believe that behind the Law there is an economic motivation.
And I also think there is an electoral calculation because euthanasia has become a synonym of progress, something modern, false compassion, so that it’s a speech that many people buy, and money can be saved in this regard.
The economic motive is the main one; however, it’s also the case that a good part of the population is the least in need of euthanasia, but there is a very ideologized social part that defends it as a right. It’s people who are just 30 or 40 years old that live a great life and are dedicated to defending this type of “rights” and make much noise about it. So, there is a sum of factors that have made this culture of death enter very gently in society.
Therefore, the Government also has to satisfy these people. However, they have not listened to the people who, because of their suffering, have really thought of euthanasia. It is these people we have wanted to reach, not the ideologized that walk with the flag and banner in favor of euthanasia.
Those of us in “Vividores” want to reach people that want to “erase themselves from the map” and ask for this measure, not because of their ideology but because they are living a hell. We want to listen to them and help them, and to say to them that their life does have meaning. But we want those to speak to those who are experiencing the same situation.
The Government hasn’t listened to these people, who after well-administered dignified palliative care don’t want to die. The desire to die disappears in 99.9% of the cases. People want to be taken care of, accompanied and consoled.
The Government hasn’t listened to anyone, not even to those suffering, or to doctors or experts in Bioethics. Perhaps, that’s why it’s so tenebrous. If one is going to legislate on death, one must at least listen to the experts on death, to people that are dying, to palliative carers. If this isn’t done, it’s impossible that something good will come out of it.
Exaudi: Such suffering, in fact, affects the meaning of a person’s life. For instance, in Europe’s northern countries, euthanasia is so assumed, that old age is considered a bother for the community.
Vives: It makes sense that it’s so. If as a society we have accepted that there are lives that are less worthy, for example, because of something physical (soon it will be a mental motive, then for a slight depression and the day will come when it will be due to a bad time at work), because, in the future, it won’t be the State that decides it for us or neighbors.
For instance, why will we not end up saying: “Listen, don’t be so cruel as to keep your father alive who is sick. Why don’t you kill him?” This is false compassion. And the same thing will happen with abortion. I believe that, in a few years, we’ll see it; there will be a much more aggressive pressure than now against people that, for example, are going to have a Down’s Syndrome child, and they will be told that they must shoulder all the expenses or that the child can’t be born.
It’s logical that this will happen. As a society, we ourselves have voted in this sense, based on criteria of comfort. But the day will come when the State will decide for you on the basis of efficient criteria.
Exaudi: The poor person, who is the one that suffers most, doesn’t think about this option. We have so many things in the West, that we give ourselves the power to relativize the sense of reality.
Vives: The Bible states it: “It’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” It doesn’t mean that the rich man is bad in himself, but that having, possessing, and controlling much at times moves us away from reality. It makes us believe that we are somewhat like gods who can live removing pain from our lives, without the necessity to bow before anything, with the culture of the immediate.
In that culture of weak people, in which today there is no sacrifice for anything or anyone, what is normal is that when you break a nail you want to die, and this has happened
Exaudi: Do you think this will explode? Does God have a plan?
Vives: For the time being, I’m not a prophet. What is seen is that there are few answers and reactions of groups of people that are doing things to address it. I don’ know the Lord’s ways, but we must understand, humanly, that this battle is going to last many years.
Let us understand: Evil has been working for many years, so that we see euthanasia as an act of mercy when, in reality, it’s the greatest of cruelties. Evil has worked for a long time to deceive us and make us believe this.
So, we must do the same, not to deceive, but to show the truth and make it shine. I don’t know where God’s ways will lead to, but our task is to work so that in 10 years euthanasia is something rare.
Exaudi: Is the family a pillar in this reconstruction?
Vives: What’s going to happen with the approval of euthanasia is that many people will feel a burden in their family, spending hours and hours in the hospital or at home. This can be a blessing, according to how one sees it; however, it’s also a big cross. And these people, with the great pressure on them, will say that they no longer want to live.
I don’t think this will happen in a strong family, where the members love one another, the child caring for his father, or vice versa. Love within a family often does more than good treatment. The latter is indispensable, to the point that a bad practice may make you want to die. Good treatment enables you to be well within the family.
The family is where love is first lived, in intimacy, where men become strong and one can be free.
Translation by Virginia M. Forrester
