Catholic Church Amps Up Its Fight Against Aid in Dying

[trotsky]

On Thursday the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) will release a new document that calls for the end of legal aid in dying. To Live Each Day with Dignity marks a nationwide effort by the Roman Catholic Church to influence how patients will be cared for at the end of their lives. Citing a Death with Dignity bill that passed in Washington in 2008, a ruling protecting the right to aid in dying by the Montana supreme court in 2009 and a spate of state initiatives, a June 1 press release states, "The Church needs to respond in a timely and visible way to this renewed challenge, which will surely be pursued in a number of states in the years to come."

...

Under pressure from the Catholic Church and its affiliates, rights of patients across the board could be weakened. From efficacy of advanced directives and living wills (documents used to state patients’ healthcare wishes), to medical proxy laws (that appoint patient guardians), from hospice and palliative funding and regulation, to drug regulation, to laws that govern hospitals, hospital workers and home healthcare aids. But also at stake are the laws that govern inheritance rights, death certificate parameters and legality regarding suicide (which assisted suicide is often equated with). The list goes on.

Source: The Nation

Why does the Catholic Church think it should be able to take rights away from ALL people, Catholic or not?

[HockeyMom]

1. "I do NOT wish to become a science experiement

to see how long doctors can keep me alive". That is what my Mom said to me when she appointed me her Health Proxy. She had a big DNR sign over her bed. When she went into cardiac arrest, they let her go. It was very fast. She was 75 when she went into the hospital knowing she was going to die. She gave me Power of Attorney also. She made all her own funeral arrangements before she went into the hospital.

So now the catholic church is going to tell people they have no right to do this? Excuse me, but if god didn't want her to die, she wouldn't have gone into cardiac arrest, now would she?

The catholic church is losing their power over their own people. They are attempting to get it back any way then can. I can remember before JFK was elected (yes, I'm that old), people were saying that the Pope would be ruling America. Looks as if this is coming true with our current legislators. How quickly people forget.

[RKP5637]

2. IMO if it causes pain and suffering they're for it ... n/t

[pnwmom]

14. The OP is about assisted suicide, not pain medication.

The Church isn't opposed to necessary pain medication, including opiates, even if the medication might hasten death.

I've just been through this with a relative in a Catholic hospice unit. She had the same medicated, painless death from cancer as my father did, in a non-Catholic hospice.

[RKP5637]

15. That's good to hear! Thanks! n/t

[pnwmom]

5. The Catholic Church is against assisted suicide, but does not require

medical treatment to prolong death or the use of pain medication that might hasten death.

[pnwmom]

7. The Catholic Church would not have had a problem with your mother's DNR

or her decision to forgo any other medical treatment to prolong her life.

What they're against is assisted suicide.

[Iggo]

25. Slow suicide: Yes. Fast suicide: No.

Okay.

Got it.

[pnwmom]

28. The point of pain medication is to manage pain, not to try to kill.

That is a significant difference.

If it turns out that pain can only be managed with doses that, for example, slow down the respiratory system, then so be it. That is different from deliberately deciding to end a life.

[Iggo]

31. DNR's are okay. Refusing medical care is okay.

Getting it over with is not okay.

That's my point. Slow suicide is okay, but fast suicide is not okay.

[dimbear]

3. The ancient Romans had a saying: There are two tragedies,

a life which is too short and a life which is too long.

[Angry Dragon]

4. If they truly believe this then they hate Jesus

It is claimed in the Bible that Jesus knew the Romans were coming to kill him. If he did not pick his time to die, he would have run away to live another day and to preach more. I guess they feel it is okay for the leader of their church to pick the time of their death but no one else can have the right.

[pnwmom]

9. They don't. The OP is misrepresenting the Church's position.

The Church is against assisted suicide. They don't require anyone to have medical treatment that prolongs death, and they have no problem with the use of necessary pain medications that could hasten death.

Only 3 states in the country allow assisted suicide. The Church's position is well in the mainstream on this issue.

[pnwmom]

6. The Church is pro-hospice care. But it's against assisted suicide.

Catholic moral teaching doesn't require medical treatment which will only prolong death and it allows pain medication which could have the effect of hastening death. It draws the line at assisted suicide.

[trotsky]

8. Did you read the article? n/t

[pnwmom]

10. Yes. That's why I know what it says.

The church is against assisted suicide -- also known as "legal aid in dying" -- but so are the laws in 47 states.

"On Thursday the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) will release a new document that calls for the end of legal aid in dying. To Live Each Day with Dignity marks a nationwide effort by the Roman Catholic Church to influence how patients will be cared for at the end of their lives. Citing a Death with Dignity bill that passed in Washington in 2008, a ruling protecting the right to aid in dying by the Montana supreme court in 2009 and a spate of state initiatives, a June 1 press release states, "The Church needs to respond in a timely and visible way to this renewed challenge, which will surely be pursued in a number of states in the years to come."

The writer does make it clear that assisted suicide is what the Church actually opposes -- but she also speculates on all kinds of things she's afraid COULD happen, using a slippery slope theory. That's all most of her concerns are -- speculation.

There are issues -- such as abortion and birth control -- where I'm concerned about the Church's ability to prevent medical care, through their large network of hospitals. But I don't know of anyone who's ever planned a suicide to take place in any hospital. For one thing, there's the Hippocratic oath. But if nothing else, why would anyone spend the money to kill themselves in a hospital setting?

[trotsky]

19. No, I do not think you do.

This goes much farther than just opposing assisted suicide. AND it seeks to take rights away from non-Catholics. What gives them the right?

[pnwmom]

21. No, it doesn't. If it did, you should have been able to cite the paragraph.

All the rest of the article -- aside from noting that the Church opposes legal aid in dying or assisted suicide -- was mere speculation on what "could" happen in the future.

And the Church's position is in line with the 47 states that already oppose assisted suicide -- it's not a radical right idea.

What gives the the right to have a position? Church members have the same right that every other citizen does to influence the political process.

[trotsky]

23. So you believe one religious sect should be able to set policy for everyone else.

Wow.

[pnwmom]

26. I believe members or non-members of any Church have the same right

to express their support or non-support for any legislation.

Church members have exactly the same right as atheists to "set policy for everyone else" -- i.e., advocate for legislation.

[trotsky]

33. Why can't I make my own end-of-life decisions?

Why does your church want to take that right away from me and others who do not adhere to your dogma?

[muriel_volestrangler]

24. They *claim* they allow medication even if it hastens death, but have little credibility

Consider their wish (and this is the same bishops who have produced this new document) that a pregnant woman and her fetus die, rather than the fetus being aborted with medical intervention. In that case, the fact that treatment would hasten the death of the fetus made it morally unacceptable to them, even though it did not just spare the woman pain - it saved her life.

So, basically, until they have a policy which put the life of a woman ahead of the survival, for a few more days, of a fetus, their claims about allowing life-shortening pain medication are unreliable. Many Catholic doctors and hospitals may be giving life-shortening medication in practice, but the bishops' desire to stop anything that might shorten the existence of a fetus, let alone a person, puts them at risk of excommunication (as the people in the woman's case were).

[pnwmom]

27. That was ONE Bishop in Arizona who made that terrible decision.

The ethics committee at the Catholic hospital didn't agree with him and neither did the head of the nun's order (the nun who was excommunicated for approving the abortion), and neither do Catholic theologians across the country -- and neither do other bishops. This case stood out because the way it was handled was so unusual.

According to standard Catholic theology, which the Catholic ethics committee consulted in agreeing to the abortion, this woman's case fit precisely into an exception in Catholic law that would allow abortion in her case. But this particular hardline bishop took what was, to me and to millions of other Catholics, an indefensible position. Every year Catholic hospitals deal with difficult cases like this but you don't hear about them -- because other bishops of other dioceses do not penalize hospital ethics committees for following standard Catholic theology on this issue, which would have ALLOWED this woman's abortion.

Having said that, I am very concerned about the issue of Catholic hospitals denying standard obstetric and gynecologic care, especially because in many smaller communities a Catholic hospital may be the only hospital. I strongly believe, in any pregnancy, the life of the mother is paramount -- and so I disagree with the Church's position on that. But this is an entirely different issue than that addressed by the OP, which was about the Church's position against assisted-suicide. Having gone through Catholic hospice with relatives, and read hospice literature, and worked with hospice nurses, I can tell you that pain medication is NOT withheld from dying patients, even though it can have the effect of hastening the dying process.

[muriel_volestrangler]

30. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops backed the local bishop

In a press conference announcing his decision Tuesday, Bishop Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix explained that his assessment of the situation at St. Joseph's Hospital was supported by the doctrinal committee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in addition to his own panel of experts, working with the National Catholic Bioethics Center.

http://www.breakingchristiannews.com/articles/display_art.html?ID=8519

It is hardly reassuring that following the incident at St. Joseph’s, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops said Sister Margaret was properly punished and seconded Bishop Olmsted’s stance against providing the abortion, even to save a woman’s life.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/23/opinion/23thu2.html

And they are the people who released the document in the OP. That's why I don't believe them. It is, as you say, an indefensible position to most people, probably including most Catholics - but the USCCB are reactionary weirdos who may excommunicate other Catholics who dare show some compassion for those dying, or at risk of dying. The USCCB should be listened to by no-one at all until they can show they have learnt some basic moral sense.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

11. Mother Teresa was a COMPLETE FRAUD.

She had beds where people suffered and died. She did NOT have a hospital. She took in millions of dollars, stashed away in Swiss bank accounts.
She did not provide ANY medical care at all to the dying people.
Why she was promoted as a Nobel Prize winner and a saint is completely baffling to me.

Christopher Hitchens talked to many people in Calcutta, including her bookkeeper, and exposed her fraudulence.

[RKP5637]

16. Now I recall when something like that came out some years back shocking everyone. Do you

have a good link. I've been searching on Google, but there are so many pros and cons, as usual, it's hard to find a definitive link. Thanks!

[Manifestor_of_Light]

36. Hitchens wrote a pamphlet called The Missionary Position.

That's all I know about it.

[RKP5637]

37. OK, thanks!!! n/t

[TheMadMonk]

12. Because people who are suffering are open to suggestion.

How do you thknk the church accumulated all that realestate over the centuries?


People dying in agony think of God.

People passing easily think of their family.

[pnwmom]

13. The Church isn't pro-agony. The Church has no problem

with the administration of necessary pain-medications such as opiates even if it could hasten death.

[TheMadMonk]

17. Pain meds often fail before the body does.

Which is the reason that many wish to be helped along at the end.

Many a priest has emerged from a deathbed with a revised will leaving EVERYTHING to the church.


Shall we start with the Crusades? The Inquisition? Flagellants? How priests and nuns treated children in their care? The sort of "corrective" abuses they handed out in schools? I certainly remember the last.

Without the suffering of people, The Church would be nothing.

Don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining.

[pnwmom]

20. Yeah, show me the links where a priest gets a new deathbed will.

What a crock.

The whole world has changed since the Crusades and the Inquisition, including the Catholic Church. Today's Catholics can't be blamed for what happened in Europe five hundred years ago anymore than today's Americans can be blamed for the Salem witch trials.

[TheMadMonk]

22. Today's Catholic church can be blamed for living up to its history.

For the abuses it knew of and refused to address that are still coming to light. Physical beatings AND sexual abuse. For the fact that it is still in almost full denial over these things.

Virtuall all property owned by The Church came to it as bequests, and a huge proportion of those bequests were made AFTER the giver knew they would die soon.

In the Philipines, and I am absolutely sure elsewhere, The Catholic Church still plays the "join us or pay/go without" game with education. They've been repeatedly busted doing it with third and developing world heathcare. It insists that non-catholics be subject to Catholic morality. It abandoned the helpless in New York rather than comply with non-discrimination laws.

I am aware that the practices are not as blatant or extreme as they once were, but that has far more to do with secular oversight than any voluntary reform on the part of The Church.

Nor do I see the Church rushing to return properties that most definitely were extorted by its agents in the past.

Not for Salem, but for continuing in the same vein, modern America (the nation as a whole, not the people as individuals) most definitely is responsible: McCarthyism; the ongoing persecution of gays and other minorities; The Nouveaux McCarthyism directed against "terrorism".

[Taverner]

18. Instead of feeding and housing the poor, they would rather those in pain suffer needlessly

Oh but religion is sooooo good for people....gimmie a break Ratzo

[struggle4progress]

29. The potential for abuse in "assisted suicide" has been recognized for millennia,

which is why the ancient Hippocratic Oath included a prohibition: I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody if asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect

... Nobody disputes that Kenneth Minor held the knife that ripped into the chest of Jeffrey Locker in July 2009 as Locker, a motivational speaker, sat in his car with his hands tied behind his back. Locker, 52, who appeared to have a good life — a loving wife, three children, a nice home in a comfortable suburb — died that night, slumped behind the wheel of his shiny black Dodge in what was thought to be a vicious murder and robbery. But jurors hearing the case that opened last week in New York must decide whether Minor was a coldblooded killer or a mere tool in an extraordinary plan by Locker to arrange his own murder — a claim that sounds outlandish, except that prosecutors have conceded much of it is true. Nearly a year after Locker's death, they dropped first-degree murder and robbery charges against Minor, who says Locker used his motivational speaking talents to persuade him to do the unthinkable: tie his hands with a telephone cord and hold the knife steady as Locker repeatedly impaled himself on it. His alleged motivation: to ensure his family collected millions of dollars in life insurance that would not be paid if his death were ruled a suicide ...
Assisted suicide or murder? Jury faces tough issues in grisly stabbing
February 20, 2011|By Tina Susman, Los Angeles Times
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/feb/20/nation/la-na-suicide-trial-20110221

Kenneth Minor Gets 20 Years For Motivational Speaker’s Murder
April 4, 2011 8:46 PM
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2011/04/04/man-convicted-in-motivational-speakers-murder-faces-sentencing/

PIERRE -- The South Dakota Supreme Court upheld the murder conviction on Thursday of a Rapid City man who had argued that he did not commit murder in shooting a friend who he aid was in chronic pain and wanted to die ... Goulding said the two men drove to a remote location, and he shot Kissner in the head at Kissner's request ...
Rapid City murder conviction upheld in assisted suicide
Associated Press
Posted: Thursday, June 16, 2011 2:22 pm
http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/news/article_ac25f65c-9824-11e0-9e71-001cc4c002e0.html

... On September 16, at 11:20 a.m., Huston called Lincoln Police to report his roommate, 22-year-old Ryan Johnson, had committed suicide. Huston reported he found Johnson with his head wrapped with plastic wrap. Subsequent autopsy confirmed Ryan died from asphyxiation. Evidence at the scene and toxicology reports indicated that Ryan also consumed sleeping pills prior to his death. During the investigation, Lincoln Police discovered Dallas Huston discussed the death with other individuals. Those acquaintances came forward with information that Dallas Huston helped Ryan Johnson commit suicide. Investigators were able to confirm the information through recorded interviews ...
Updated: 8:42 AM Oct 14, 2009
Update: Huston Charged with 2nd-Degree Murder in Assisted Suicide Case
Reporter: 10/11 News
http://www.1011now.com/news/headlines/63783377.html

... It was supposedly a suicide pact .. between one of 28-year-old Dallas Huston's multiple personalities and his friend, 22-year-old Ryan Johnson ... Court documents show Huston later admits to Lincoln Police he doesn't have multiple personalities and confesses to killing Johnson. Joe Kelly explains how Johnson died. "There was saran wrap that was wrapped around the victims face. The victim took that off and then in Mr. Huston's own words, 'he took a pillow and smothered the victim'," says Kelly ...
Lover's So-Called Suicide Pact Turns To A Murder Charge
Updated: Wednesday, October 14, 2009 11:48 PM EST
http://www.kmtv.com/story/11317340/lovers-so-called-suicide-pact-turns-to-a-murder-charge?redirected=true

... At trial, Huston told the jury he found Johnson wrapped in a blanket with plastic wrap around his face on Sept. 16, 2009, four days before Johnson's 23rd birthday. Prosecutors, citing Huston's own statements to police, said Huston suffocated Johnson with a pillow after he got free of the plastic. But Huston denied being involved and told the jury he invented personalities and stories about the death while talking with investigators. He called one such personality "a test to see how the officers would react to it" ...
Dallas Huston gets 50 years to life for murder
By ZACH PLUHACEK
Lincoln Journal Star
Posted: Tuesday, May 24, 2011 2:15 pm
http://m.journalstar.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/article_00544925-f3ee-5c19-ad6a-5886037c2e16.html

... in A Chosen Death .. Lonny Shavelson, an emergency physician, .. describes "Gene" who has had strokes and depression but is not terminal. Sarah, from the Hemlock Society, is given the task of assisting in his death. Sarah found her first killing experience tremendously satisfying and powerful, "the most intimate experience you can share with a person ... More than sex. More than birth." Sarah gives Gene the poisonous brew as if she were handing him a beer. Gene drinks the liquid, falls asleep on Sarah's lap who then places a plastic bag over his head and croons, "See the light. Go to the light." But Gene, suddenly faced with the prospect of immediate death, changes his mind and screams out...and tries to rip the bag off his face. Sarah won't allow it, catches Gene's wrist and holds it. Gene's body thrusts upwards and Sarah lays across Gene's shoulders ... pinning him down, twisting the bag to seal it tight. Gene's body stops moving ...
Book Review
Forced Exit --- The Slippery Slope From Assisted Suicide to Legalized Murder
Wesley J. Smith
http://www.aapsonline.org/jpands/hacienda/smith.html

[trotsky]

32. Yup, but that doesn't change a thing.

Why should the Catholic Church get to decide how I must spend my final days?

[struggle4progress]

34. Your political analysis seems naive to me. The Catholics have always been a minority

in this country, so it is highly unlikely that they are responsible for the anti-assisted-suicide statutes we have. They are entitled to their opinion, as you are entitled to yours. If you want to work to promote assisted suicide, it is your right to do so and to confederate with others to push that agenda. I myself will oppose it, because I am concerned about the real potential for abuse

[trotsky]

35. I noticed you didn't answer my question.

Any reason why?

Bonus question: do you support or oppose the right to an abortion? It too can be abused.