Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore, vice president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, at the USCCB’s fall meeting Nov. 15, 2023. / Credit: Joe Bukuras/CNA
CNA Staff, Jan 31, 2024 / 13:25 pm (CNA).
The bishops of Maryland have written an open letter denouncing state legislators’ decision to consider an assisted-suicide bill and calling for “a better path forward.”
“We are deeply disappointed to learn that once again the Maryland General Assembly will debate whether to legalize physician-assisted suicide,” the Jan. 30 letter from the Maryland Catholic Conference said.
Assisted-suicide bills have been considered in Maryland since the 1990s — and most recently in 2023 — but have never passed.
Signed by Baltimore Archbishop William Lori, Washington archbishop Cardinal Wilton Gregory, and Wilmington Bishop William Koenig, the letter said that the bill “puts our most vulnerable brothers and sisters at risk of making decisions for themselves that are manipulated by factors such as disability, mental instability, poverty, and isolation.”
“Maryland has accurately recognized that suicide is a serious public health concern in the general population and has offered substantial resources to address the concern,” the letter said.
“At a time when our nation is grappling with how to address a frighteningly high suicide rate it is deeply illogical for the state of Maryland to be seeking ways to facilitate suicide for those with a terminal illness, all the while claiming such preventable and unnecessary deaths are somehow dignified,” the bishops continued.
The bill, titled the End-of-Life Option Act, was introduced in both the House and Senate in mid-January.
The legislation would allow individuals with a terminal illness to request assisted suicide from a physician.
Terminal illness is defined in the bill as “a medical condition that, within reasonable medical judgment, involves a prognosis for an individual that likely will result in the individual’s death within six months.”
The process for requesting “aid in dying” consists of making an oral request to one’s physician and then submitting a written request. The individual must then make another oral request to the physician at least 15 days after the first oral request and 48 hours after the written request. No one can request assisted suicide on behalf of the patient.
According to Death with Dignity, 11 states have legalized the practice: California; Maine; Oregon; Colorado; Montana; Vermont; Washington, D.C.; New Jersey; Washington; Hawaii; and New Mexico.
“For all legal rights and obligations, record-keeping purposes, and other purposes governed by the laws of the state, whether contractual, civil, criminal, or otherwise, the death of a qualified individual by reason of the self-administration of medication prescribed under this subtitle shall be deemed to be a death from natural causes, specifically as a result of the terminal illness from which the qualified individual suffered,” the legislation says.
In their letter, the bishops said: “The central tenet guiding our opposition to this deadly proposal is that all human life is created in the image and likeness of God and therefore sacred.”
They cited modern “medical advancements” that can be used to help individuals with terminal illnesses to be “comfortable and improve the quality of the remainder of their lives without them feeling the need to reluctantly choose a ‘dignified death.’”
The bishops called on Marylanders to improve end-of-life care, writing that “it is incumbent upon each of us to ensure that those at the end of their lives can experience a death that doesn’t include offering a form of suicide prescribed by a doctor.”
“We believe our elected officials should work to improve access to the network of care available to Maryland families by increasing access to palliative and hospice care, enhancing end-of-life education and training opportunities for physicians, and ensuring that there is appropriate diagnosis and treatment for depression and other mental and behavioral health issues,” the letter said.
They also pointed to the lack of “safeguards” in the bill.
“The proponents of this legislation claim that this policy offers an ‘option’ to a very small set of individuals who are suffering from a terminal illness with less than six months to live, claiming this option will help them maintain control and dignity during their final days on earth,” the letter said.
“This legislation ignores the reality facing many in such conditions and is woefully lacking in the types of meaningful safeguards that would prevent this unnecessary and drastic option,” the letter said. “Such safeguards include mandated mental health assessments, reporting requirements, safe disposal of unused medication, or prohibitions against expansion of this program.”
The letter said that in every state where assisted suicide has been legalized, “grave abuses and expansion have occurred,” which makes the lethal practice “available to far more people and not just those facing imminent death.”
“There is a better path forward for the people of Maryland, and it does not involve suicide,” the letter said.
“We urge all people of goodwill to demand that our lawmakers reject suicide as an end-of-life option and to choose the better, safer path that involves radical solidarity with those facing the end of their earthly journey,” the letter said.
In recent weeks, residents of Massachusetts and New York were also urged by bishops and pro-life advocates to oppose assisted-suicide bills upcoming in their states.
In Massachusetts, the “End of Life Options Act” says that “a terminally ill patient may voluntarily make an oral request for medical aid in dying and a prescription for medication” if the patient is a “mentally capable adult,” a resident of Massachusetts, and has been determined by a physician to be terminally ill.
In New York, the “Medical Aid in Dying Act” would also allow a terminally ill patient to request medication that would put an end to his life.
“Lawmakers need to hear from their constituents if we hope to avoid yet another assault on human life here. Assisted suicide is dangerous for patients, caregivers, and vulnerable populations such as the elderly and people with disabilities,” the New York State Catholic Conference said.
In Massachusetts, the pro-life group Massachusetts Citizens for Life told supporters that “the bill clashes with cultural, religious, and philosophical beliefs against intentionally ending human life.”
According to Death with Dignity, 16 other states are considering assisted suicide legislation in 2024.
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Over a year ago, Bishop Voderholzer proposed a revised script for the German “synodal path,” and was stiffed by the clericalists. Refreshing news, here, to find a German bishop speaking common sense, as if the truth mattered and still exists. The pygmies should have listened. They’ve been upstaged by one of the adults in the room.
Yes, forward (!) to the “central questions”: “Is it meaningful to speak of God? Can God have revealed himself in Jesus Christ? Is this revelation recognizable, and is it liberating for me? What does grace mean? How do grace and freedom go together? Are faith in creation and a scientific approach to the world compatible?”
Yes, one of the few outstanding German bishops. “They all knew that the revelation of God is self evident” (Voderholzer). That truth, Christ revealing of his Father’s essence is divine love, pure love, infinite, the supreme truth. It requires no supporting arguments, or proofs. We assent to what cannot be denied.
One German bishop who has something to say.
“Are faith in creation and a scientific approach to the world compatible?”
For 100 years, science has known that the universe does not exist without a conscious observer, who we know to be Adam kind, in it. It takes a conscious observer to physically experience the universe, which causes ‘wave collapse’, for a physical universe to exist. When man is not experiencing the universe, a physical universe no longer exists. This is non-intuitive, meaning, scientists could never have imagined this to be the case, until scientific data proved that this is the case.
The actual scientific data at the quantum level, is on the side of the Christian Believer. Scientifically, there can be no physical universe before Adam opened his eyes to look, touch, smell, hear, taste, and experience his Reality of their being a universe.
Neils Bohr, “It is meaningless to assign Reality to the universe in the absence of observation; in the intervals between measurement, quantum systems truly exist as a fuzzy mixture of all possible properties.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1YqgPAtzho
Why does the world not know that there can be no physical universe before Adam opened his eyes? Because atheist scientists don’t want you to know about it. So once the truth comes out about how the universe does not exist before Adam opens his eyes as a conscious observer, Christian Creationists are justified as the correct interpreters of when Creation happened. Creation happened on the week Adam was made. This will be a strong shot in the arm for the Christian faith.
Neils Bohr VS Albert Einstein.
Neils Bohr says that there is no universe when a conscious man is not looking at it. Albert Einstein says, “I’d like to think the moon was there even when I wasn’t looking at it.” After over a century of fierce debate and mountains of scientific research to settle the debate, Neils Bohr’s ‘ ‘Peek A Boo’ universe, a universe which does not exist when man is not looking at it, is dominating the debate, over Albert Einstein’s “I’d like to think the moon was there even when I wasn’t looking at it.” By the end of the following video, the narrator indicates that there is only a slim chance that Albert Einstein’s ‘Realism’ can be salvaged. Proven science says there is no universe when Adamkind is not looking at it and experiencing it.
https://youtu.be/tafGL02EUOA
Neils Bohr
“Nor is it our business to prescribe to God how He should run the world.”
Scientists are up to sending 800 atom molecules through the double slit experiment. There is a, seen by man, 800 atom molecule coming out of the particle gun, but then there is only a fuzzy mixture of all possibilities going through the double slit, provided man is not looking at it, and then there is an 800 atom molecule, seen by man when hitting the screen. In other words, the 800 atom molecule exits, coming out of the gun with man looking at it, then does not exist when man is not looking at it going through the double slit, and then the 800 atom molecule is seen by man on the screen it hits. An 800 atom molecule just popping in and out of existence. Wow!
Not only does God know our every thought, hear our every prayer, know our soul, but our individual universe is completely controlled by God. When two people have different, individual Realities, the two Realities collapse into one, common Reality, when they discuss with one another their different Realities. Wow!
Physicists have long suspected that quantum mechanics allows two observers to experience different, conflicting realities. Now they’ve performed the first experiment that proves it.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/03/12/136684/a-quantum-experiment-suggests-theres-no-such-thing-as-objective-reality/
So what proven science is telling us, is that Adam kind is at the center of all that physically exists, and that God can select from all possible Realities, what an individual human being will experience as their Reality. Talk about having a personal relationship with our God! Wow!
When a subatomic particle is in wave form, it possesses all possible properties, which can be chosen from by God, to become all possible outcomes. All of these, ‘all possible outcomes’, are bouncing off one another to produce the wave effect, when traveling through the double slit. When man goes to experience his individual Reality, now only one, of ‘all possible outcomes’, is selected by God, to become a specific physical particle, with specific properties, in a specific place, and the rest of the ‘all possible properties’ no longer exist. In the case of a star, infinite subatomic particles make the wave collapse simultaneously, with all particles taking their single specific property, in their specific place, in their specific atom, in their specific molecule, in their specific star. Then when man is no longer looking at the star, all the infinite subatomic particles immediately return back to being a soup of all possibilities again. Wow! It is only God Who has the Power to do something like this! It is God’s miraculous, great Power selecting the property, and position that all, infinite, subatomic particles will transition into, from their wave state of all possible properties, when man looks at a star and triggers wave collapse. Wow! Wow! Wow! And when a man looks at a star, he is usually looking at a sky full of our one septillion stars!
There is no way a universe which only exists when man is looking at it, can come in and out of existence, without the miraculous power of God making it so! I believe the reason God allowed mankind to see His miraculous work at the quantum level, is that God is waving to atheist scientists, the world, and we His Church on earth. The atheist scientists are doing everything in their power, especially through Scientism, to silence our God’s miraculous Presence at the quantum level. The actual scientific data at the quantum level, is on the side of the Christian Creationist Believer.
Grasping the reality and seriousness of abortion, or, contraception, and trying to share it in your parish and community, is not “doing politics”. Four points about this:
1. It goes back to the first Council, the Council of Jerusalem: you are not “tearing up the seamless garment of the Church” when you preserve it. Look out; because people can try to demean you and belittle the subject matter, “calling it out” via wrong senses, like, “being controversial”, or, “doing heavy-duty evangelizing”, or, “running for office”/”want to stand out”, or, “stuck on ethics”.
2. What is happening today is not 3 abortions every 5 years by teens sneaking out to the malpractice doctor. It is a widespread phenomenon carrying ideological affects and developing alongside an organized industrial enterprise extracting and manipulating human flesh -all highly publicized and integrally promoted and defended.
3. We laypeople are meant to be in politics as well as apostolate.
4. There are and will continue to be attempts from many sides, to diminish and even snuff out pro-life politics as well as apostolates; but also trying to find ways to neutralize/anasthetize them.