Addendum  to the Letter of Bioethical Principles of AME-Brazil, established in the VI  National Congress of the Medical  Spiritual Associations  from Brazil

We,  spiritists doctors, congregated in the VI Medinesp, in São Paulo city, in June  8th 2007, elaborate the following Letter of Principles, from the  studied thematic:

The  present time of the Brazilian social context involves subjects
related to the  medical area that, for the gravity up against the
primordial right to the life,  demand clear positioning and firm
attitudes. Some of these topics have raised  doubts and mistaken
interpretations upon our last Letter of Principles (2005).

Some  questions are frequent to the Spiritist doctors movement, to which we try to  clarify.

What  it is natural death?
It  is the one that comes about the natural exhaustion of the organs, in consequence  of the age or for the exhaustion of the vital fluid in result of the life habits  or pathology.

What  is orthotanasia?
The  orthotanasia  term,  in medical language, means death in the
correct time or natural death, and it is  a procedure that aims at the humanization of death, without the use of ways  to shorten life and also without taking attitudes to keep it. The term for the  Medicine has a different meaning from the used one in the legal area, which uses it as synonymous of passive euthanasia, generating such mistakes.

Which  is the positioning of the Spiritist Doctor Movement concerning the resolution of  the Federal Advice of Medicine upon the orthotanasia?
The  Resolution nº 1805, from the Federal Advice of Medicine, published in Federal  official gazette in November 26th 2006, is in accordance with the  agreement of AME-Brazil as for the definition of the term, worrying us only the  applicability and the inspection of the procedures on the same one.

How  should we proceed up against the position from the Federal
Government upon the  decriminalization of the abortion, based on the statement  that it  would be a problem of public health?  We  are totally contrary to this position, because the right to the life is
inviolable and divine. To legalize the abortion is not alone to
decriminalize  the agent of such a hideous act. More than this, the
legalization is to act  against this right, in special of the one of an
innocent and incapable to fight  by itself.  The  solution for the
problem of public health due to the consequences of the  clandestine abortions is not to legalize or decriminalize the abortion, offering access to this criminal act. The way is to offer adequate and continuous  education to all population, aiming at efficient ways of familiar planning,  without assuming action of ordinariness for sexual activity and the affective  relationship.

What  is Anencephaly  and  which is opinion about the legalization of the abortion of  anencephalus?
The Anencephaly  is  not a condition of complete absence of the
central nervous system and the  anatomical defects are from different degrees. There is always the preservation  of diencephalon - headquarters of the action of the spirit in the physical body  and neurological base for the organic life. And the anencephalus, independently  of the possible expectation of survival, must not have violated its right of  living and fulfilling the intentions for its existence and incarnation.

How  the Spiritist Physician Movement acts concerning the techniques of assisted  reproduction?  We  are favorable to the techniques, but with the concern of the necessity of the  improvement of the same ones, in order to prevent the production of exceeding  embryos.

Which  must be the position concerning the exceeding embryos not transferred in the  In  vitro  fertilization?
The  decisions in this subject fit to the couples involved.

Considering,  therefore, all the ranks above, we reaffirm that
the Spiritisit Doctor Movement  is:

Against the euthanasia and the  dystanasia,  authenticating the
choice of therapeutical attitudes that allow to the natural  death
with less suffering and total support for the patient and the
family;

Against any forms of breaking the right to the life, which
initiates with  the fecundation and it ceases in the
deincarnation;

In  favor of health politics that promote the education of the
population, aiming at  the Christians- ethical principles;

In  favor of any therapeutical actions that, in the infertility case,
make possible  to the couple the chance to promote and value the
family.

São Paulo, 8 de junho de 2007.