The Declaration on Euthanasia is the Roman Catholic Church's official document on the topic of euthanasia, a statement that was issued as by the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1980.[5]
Catholic teaching condemns euthanasia as a "crime against life" and a "crime against God".[5] The teaching of the Catholic Church on euthanasia rests on several core principles of Catholic ethics, including the sanctity of human life, the dignity of the human person, concomitant human rights, due proportionality in casuistic remedies, the unavoidability of death, and the importance of charity.[5] It has been argued that these are relatively recent positions,[6] but whatever the position of individual Catholics, the Roman Catholic Church's viewpoint is unequivocal.[7]