Boston, Mass., Jan 14, 2020 / 05:01 pm (CNA).- Second Thoughts Massachusetts, a disability rights group, has praised a recent ruling that there is not a right to assisted suicide in the state’s law or its constitution.
In a decision dated Dec. 31, 2019, Justice Mary Ames of the Suffolk Superior Court ruled that physicians who prescribe lethal medication for assisted suicide in Massachusetts can be prosecuted for involuntary manslaughter, but that physicians may provide information and advice on assisted suicide to terminally ill, competent adults.
“We are gratified that the court reaffirmed the law against assisted suicide, and referred the matter to the legislature where lawmaking belongs. Disability rights advocates will continue to press the legislature that assisted suicide is just too dangerous,” John Kelly, director of Second Thoughts, commented Jan. 13.
The case on which Ames ruled was brought by Dr. Roger Kligler, who has prostate cancer, and Dr. Alan Steinbach, who treats patients considering end-of-life problems.
Among the arguments Kligler and Steinbach made were that prosecution of a physician for manslaughter who prescribes medication for assisted suicide “impermissibly restricts a patient’s constitutional right to privacy” and their “fundamental liberty interests.”
They also argued that the prosecution of such physicians “violates the constitutional right to the equal protection of law by treating differently terminally ill adults who wish to receive [assisted suicide] and terminally ill adults who wish to hasten death by the voluntarily stopping of eating and drinking (VSED), withdrawal of life support, or palliative sedation.”
Ames wrote in her decision that “any physician is free to provide information on the jurisdictions where [assisted suicide] is legal, guidance and information on the procedures and requirements in those jurisdictions, and referrals to physicians who can provide [assisted suicide] in those jurisdictions. Such conduct, without more, does not constitute involuntary manslaughter.”
She also wrote that the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court had taken pains “to preserve what it viewed as a meaningful distinction between death that results naturally from the withdrawal of medical equipment and death that results from affirmative human efforts,” and that it had said the law “does not permit suicide” or “unlimited self-determination.”
Ames said that neither of two relevant SJC decisions suggest “that the principles that underlie the right to refuse medical treatment apply to the affirmative act of taking one’s own life with the assistance of a willing physician,” and that the SJC would likely maintain “a strong distinction between [assisted suicide], and the withdrawal of treatment and palliative care.”
Compassion & Choices, an assisted suicide advocacy group, has said they plan to appeal the ruling, WBUR reported Jan 10.
Ames wrote that the state legislature could “conclude that difficulty in determining and ensuring that a patient is ‘mentally competent’ warrants the continued prohibition” of assisted suicide.
She added that the legislature could conclude that “predicting when a patient has six months to live is too difficult and risky for the purposes of” assisted suicide. She noted that the state “put forward expert testimony that while doctors may be able to accurately predict death within two or three weeks of its occurrence, predictions of death beyond that time frame are likely to be inaccurate.”
Moreover, Ames said the legislature could also conclude that “a general medical standard of care is not sufficient to protect those seeking” assisted suicide, noting that the state provided testimony that assisted suicide “is neither a medical treatment nore a medical procedure and thus there can be no applicable medical standard of care” and that the legalization of assisted suicide “is an attempt to carve out a special case outside of the norms of medical practice.”
The legislature could, too, conclude that assisted suicide “is not equivalent to permissible alternatives,” citing the difference between assisted suicide and voluntary cessation of nutrition and hydration, withdrawal of life support, or palliative sedation.
Ames concluded that “there appears to be a broad consensus that this issue is not best addressed by the judiciary,” and that there are strong arguments for prohibiting assisted suicide or ensuring it “occurs in an environment in which clear, thoughtful, and mandatory standards are in place to protect terminally ill patients who wish to make an irreversible decision. The Legislature, not the Court, is ideally positioned to weigh those arguments and determine whether and if so, under what restrictions, [assisted suicide] should be legally authorized.”
There are bills in both houses of the state legislature to legalize assisted suicide. The bills are due to be considered by the Joint Committee on Public Health next week.
Ruthie Pool, president of MPOWER, a group of people who have experienced mental health diagnosis, trauma, or addiction, commented Jan. 13 that “as someone who has been suicidal in the past, I can relate to the desire for ‘a painless and easy way out.’ However, depression is treatable and reversible. Suicide is not. The current bill in the legislature pretends otherwise.”
In 2012, Massachusetts voters narrowly rejected a ballot initiatve that would have legalized assisted suicide.
At the time, Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston commented that “it is my hope and prayer that the defeat of Question 2 will help all people to understand that for our brothers and sisters confronted with terminal illness we can do better than offering them the means to end their lives.”
The 2012 initiative was opposed by both the Massachusetts Medical Association and the Boston Herald.
In the US, assisted suicide is legal in California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, New Jersey, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, and the District of Columbia; and in Montana by a court ruling.
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Sadly, you had to figure that some trans-genders would attempt this.I agree with this Bishop that a DNA test should be required before admission to the seminary. In addition it would not hurt if our clergy at all levels would stop soft pedaling sexual sins, including homosexuality, sexual activity outside of marriage and transgenderism, to make the church position perfectly clear on these issues.And actually SAY something on these topics from the pulpit.
Our pope has surrounded himself with morally corrupt cardinals and priests. I wonder why 🤔
If only this same level of concern existed about excluding sodomites from seminaries. And why isn’t it?
The implication here is that there aren’t physical exams provided by physicians before admission to the seminary or religious life. Why would that ever be? We need to know the candidates are reasonably healthy. While unfamiliar myself with the reconstructive surgery provided by the artisans who do these work-ups I can’t believe they aren’t easily discernable as essentially cosmetic. And then of course there are the medications required by the patient-applicants to maintain the appearance of the assumed sex. Hormones are absolutely essential. Who would pay for them? How would they get them without being deduced? This bespeaks a lack of responsible analysis of candidates which obviously predates the Halloween party we presently endure. And then there is the long lauded psychological screening. What’s up there?
The irresponsibility exhibited in this turn of events is criminal. Is there no man in any ecclesiastical position who can find their way out of a paper bag?
Well stated, James. I strongly suspect there is willful cooperation on the part of someone in the admission process … an examining physician and/or psychologist, or, God forbid, a vocation director. and, yes, it all points to incompetence of the authorities. They didn’t see this coming?
Things keep on getting sickeningly worse in this Roman Catholic Church of ours. The malodorous stench of Satan is very much present. Who will see to it that the Church is rid of Satan?
The edifice is his.
At least ten states have passed laws allowing people to change their gender/sex identity on their birth certificates. Pretty soon, they will figure out a way to fool the DNA tests. Authenticity has gone the way of horse-drawn carriages, especially now that animal waste is threatening our climate.
A DNA test would do the trick. XY equals male, XX equals female.
Rearranging the furniture does not change the DNA.
It is simpler than that. If Y is present, male. If Y is absent, female. There are rare cases of abnormal karyotype (XO, XXY, XYY, etc) but the presence of Y is determinative. In re: a previous comment, it is straightforward to make this determination unequivocally.
We’ve gone past disgrace and betrayal. We’ve now entered full mockery.
When presented with REAL science and data via the y chromosome, they will cry discrimination.
Because it’s not about the truth. It’s about pretending trans people are normal and just like you and me.
Simple fix for this”problem”: allow female entrance into ordination.
Nancy, that will never happen. Priests will only be men because Christ was a man and designed His church that way. It’s not a church law, but a divine law. The church can’t change it the way they could change, say, determining the date of a saint’s feast day. And even if they could, it wouldn’t solve the problem. We are born male or female at birth because that is how God designed our soul. Pretending otherwise is living a lie.