Mexico City Archdiocese slams euthanasia push as “totalitarian,” warns of suffering in lethal injections, calls for palliative dignity
Newsroom (12/11/2025 Gaudium Press ) In a forceful editorial published in its weekly Desde la fe (“From the Faith”), the Archdiocese of Mexico City has condemned a congressional bill seeking to legalize euthanasia, labeling it a perilous endorsement of “totalitarian and eugenic ideologies” that historically devalue human life.
Titled “A Good Death and the Myth of Euthanasia,” the piece laments a burgeoning campaign that falsely equates euthanasia with a “good death.” It declares this equivalence “a major error from an anthropological, legal, and human rights perspective,” rejecting the notion that Mexico’s Constitution safeguards only “a life with dignity” while deeming painful or suffering existence “unworthy.”
From this flawed viewpoint, the archdiocese warns, “we would be at risk of validating totalitarian and eugenic ideologies that have existed throughout human history and have caused so much harm, discarding the lives of millions that ‘weren’t worth living.'”
The editorial finds it “appalling” that terminally ill Mexicans are being proffered death as an escape, signaling societal failure “in our capacity to offer relief, support, and comfort, despite the advances of science.”
The controversial proposal, dubbed “The Law That Transcends,” was introduced Oct. 29 in the Chamber of Deputies by pro-euthanasia activist Samara Martínez, who battles systemic lupus erythematosus. Martínez framed it as “not a law about death, it is a law about life, with meaning until the last breath,” insisting that “denying the possibility of death with dignity does not preserve life, it prolongs suffering, and that is not justice, it is omission.”
Backed by the ruling Morena party, the Labor Party, and the Citizens’ Movement, the bill has garnered vocal support. Rep. Patricia Mercado of Citizens’ Movement called euthanasia a reaffirmation of “the right to a life with dignity.” Sen. Emmanuel Reyes of Morena declared “today the conditions are right to move forward,” while Ana Luisa Del Muro of the Labor Party emphasized allowing people to “die with dignity and, above all, without pain.”
Under current law, Article 312 of the Mexican Federal Penal Code imposes one to five years’ imprisonment for assisting or inducing suicide.
Countering the narrative, experts aligned with Catholic teachings highlight euthanasia’s grim realities. In a video from the National Front for the Family, Dr. Marta Tarasco Michel, co-founder of Anahuac University’s Department of Bioethics, asserted that “no one in principle wants to die.” She described the process as “administering a lethal injection containing the same type of medication used in capital punishment,” warning that “the patient will feel a lot of pain, will experience asphyxiation… this causes a lot of suffering.”
Tarasco urged promoters to “clearly explain what euthanasia is, how little it actually resolves the situation, and also provide many more palliative care services.”
Dr. Luz Adriana Templos Esteban, president of the Mexican College of Palliative Care and Support, A.C., echoed this in another Front video, noting Mexico’s robust palliative care regulations lack proper implementation and public awareness. “Palliative care allows us to improve people’s quality of life and… offer a support system for both the patient and his family,” she said, enabling “a natural death within a framework of dignity and avoid suffering.”
“What people want is not euthanasia; what they want is to not suffer and… not to have their lives taken,” Templos affirmed.
The archdiocese editorial dismantles the “romanticized notion that euthanasia means dying without pain,” citing “medical testimony that the person who undergoes death via lethal injection does in fact suffer, and it is not pleasant for loved ones to witness that scene.”
It questions the bill’s provisions allowing euthanasia requests before notaries while granting doctors conscientious objection: “Wouldn’t notaries public also have the right to conscientious objection?”
Extolling palliative care’s evolution—”which increasingly allows people to die at home, surrounded by their families, in a natural way”—the archdiocese invokes the maxim: “We must end the pain, not do away with the suffering person.”
“The resources that the state must dedicate to palliative care are considerable, but they are necessary for the dignity of all Mexicans, healthy and sick,” it stresses, decrying euthanasia as a cost-cutting measure that is “inhumane and… a symbol of a state faltering in its duty.”
Concluding with papal resonance, the editorial notes Pope Leo XIV’s designation of November for prayer against suicide, reminding that “neither pain nor suffering takes away the value of life.”
“We urge the authorities of the state not to take the easy way out when dealing with illness, not to force notaries and doctors to act against their convictions and conscience, and to work to ensure that all the sick receive medication and treatment, specialized care, and the love of their families, so that death is not the answer to suffering,” the archdiocese implores.
As debate intensifies in Congress, the Church’s stance underscores a profound defense of life’s inviolable sanctity, rooted in Scripture and tradition, against what it sees as a slippery slope toward devaluing the vulnerable.
- Raju Hasmukh with files from CNA
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