Nineteen years in a coma, the case of Jan Grzebski, a 65 year-old Polish man, was reported by various media around the world. He became known for the extraordinary fact that he woke up from a long physical absence, rather than a spiritual one.
A rail worker, in 1988 he suffered a serious labor related accident and fell into a deep coma. However, he regained his consciousness back completely in 2007. He affirms that, during those years of apparent unconsciousness, he was aware of all that was happening around him, even though he couldn’t move nor speak.
His wife Gertruda never abandoned him. Her profound faith in God made her hope for a miracle: that her husband, and father of her children, would come back to life. She never lost hope in God. She strongly opposed the euthanasia that was suggested so that Jan would not to suffer. She didn’t accept it because she had faith and believed that her husband would recover.
What great confusion for those scholars blinded by their arrogance, who believe themselves to be in possession of the truth about good and evil and the destinies of human beings. Jan affirmed that he owes his life to his wife, for whom he professed a profound gratitude for the rest of his life. While apparently unconscious, Jan could hear his doctors’ conversations and their arrogant predictions that he would not survive. The only thing he wanted to do was live. He ardently wished to simply exist while his doctors planned for his elimination. He heard everything the doctors said: Jan was alive and conscious of all that was happening around him.
It is not licit to kill a human being just for the sake of preventing suffering, nor to avoid seeing suffering. No one can authorize the death of a transcendental being, even an incurable and agonizingly ill person, or on in a deep state of coma. Medical experts can remedy these hurtful situations.
The incitement to euthanasia – a trap leading to death – putting an end to one’s own existence is truly perverse. We are on a collision course towards the culture of death so prevalent in opulent societies.
The wise words of Pope John Paul II come to mind: “I confirm that euthanasia is a grave violation of God’s Law, for it is the deliberate and morally inacceptable elimination of a human being.”
Clemente Ferrer is a media consultant in Spain. See his website here.
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