To Members and Friends of the Catholic Medical Association (USA):
Speaking as a Past-President of the Catholic Medical Association, I was one of several physicians who participated in a press conference held last Thursday in the NJ State Capitol. We provided strong reasons to oppose A220 – a bill that would legalize physician-assisted suicide in New Jersey.
ð Dr. David Stevens, MD, MA (Ethics), who is Chief Executive Officer of the Christian Medical and Dental Associations, spoke from his viewpoint as a physician and ethicist. His PowerPoint presentation is available, along with other useful information, as an on-line resource. http://cmda.org/resources/publication/euthanizing-medicine ð Eileen Bianchini, Chairperson of Connecticut Right to Life, advises: We in Connecticut defeated Physician Assisted Suicide two times: HB 6625 in 2013 and HB 5326 in 2014. I led a coalition of several lobbyists, including the Family Institute of CT and CT Catholic Conference, and Gospel of Life Society. I attribute the defeat of these bills to three things; 1___Full education on the dangers of PAS prior to the public hearing2___The solid testimonies of doctors and nurses from the Christian Medical and Dental Association as well as doctors and lawyers in CT. 3___Communications by members of our alliance, the Gospel of Life Society, which I also chair; Members were trained to focus on arguments about “harm to patients” or “harm to the greater Connecticut community” only. They were also trained to back up everything they said with facts and links to sources of information such as the Oregon Dept of Health Annual Reports, CDC, and medical white papers, and published studies of assisted suicide in Oregon. Whereas voter communications to legislators were not helpful. Please feel free to contact me any afternoon from 1 PM on to discuss this in more detail. God Bless – Eileen Eileen Bianchini, ChairpersonConnecticut Right to Life Corphttp://www.connrlc.orgGospel of Life Society,
http://www.stmarynorwalk.net/gospel_lifebox.html203 847-5727 – stmarygols@aol.com
PS: You may find some of the Physician Assisted Suicide information on our new Web site to be helpful. See: http://connrlc.org/?page_id=172 It is my hope that you might find the above information of value, as you stand up for life in your state and in your medical communities. Oremus pro invicem. (Let’s pray for one another.)
Richard A. Watson, M.D.
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A recent column by Tom Moran, “In the end, suicide with a doctor’s help” (NJ Star Ledger, Oct. 12), relates the tragic account of a newly-wed woman who is now not only anticipating her imminent death, but is actually arranging to make it happen. Diagnosed with an incurable brain cancer, she has obtained a prescription for a deliberately fatal overdose of medication. She has set the exact date and tastefully arranged the circumstances for her own suicide. As sad as these facts are, sadder still is the fact that this young lady is exploiting her self-inflicted death to create a media-event. Her highly-publicized death is part of a campaign to promote doctor-assisted suicide, nationwide and particularly here in New Jersey.
Political activists with pro-euthanasia lobby “Compassion and Choices” excitedly announce that their efforts to legalize physician-assisted suicide in New Jersey have recently come within two votes of passage. Thanks to the public support that publicity for this young lady’s suicide has bolstered, they are very hopeful of success. Once victory is achieved, there will be no turning back. Their good intentions notwithstanding, the harm they unleash will not be easily contained.
Success would mean, for physicians in New Jersey, that over two thousand years of commitment to the core values of the Hippocratic Oath would be overturned by a simple majority vote in Trenton. The roles of physician healer and professional poisoner would be, once again, combined.
Empty reassurances that these prescriptions for death would be limited to use in extreme, desperate cases are invalidated by common sense, as well as by recent experiences elsewhere. Self-destruction is, proponents assert, a human right, a matter of personal choice. Is there any other right whose exercise is limited to people who are terminally ill? On what grounds would a physician deny any patient his or her unalienable right to self-determination – to self-termination? Who would dare impose his morality or otherwise stand in the way?
If Mercy Killing is truly merciful – a matter of Compassion and Choices – then the opportunities for providing such ‘care’ should be limitless. Death by Doctor might logically be promoted as a timely and cost-effective final solution for meeting the needs of the poor, of the handicapped, of those suffering from severe retardation and mental illnesses, as well as from marked physical debilities. Federal and state authorities already mandate that we physicians strongly encourage End of Life counseling with all of our patients. While there is much good to be said for such counseling, the conversation might take on a very different tone, if the doctor sees physician-assisted suicide and death-by-prescription as legitimate cost-effective treatment options (especially when the government is rewarding that doctor financially for reducing the cost of care). An 18th century critique warned, “If the physician presumes to take into consideration whether a life has value or not, the consequences are boundless and the physician becomes the most dangerous man in the state.” (Dr. Christopher Hufeland [1762-1836])
We physicians have been, over the centuries, committed to the promotion of health, not of death. We are the custodians of life, not the agents of its deliberate destruction. This young lady needs a caring, competent doctor by her side, not his lethal prescription. A life-affirming doctor needs to be with her to the end, to control her seizures, to assuage her pain and to insure that, as much as possible, her last days, no less than all those that preceded them, are filled with dignity, peace and an awareness of how deeply she is loved.
Past President
Catholic Medical Association (USA)
