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consensus
February 2020 | South Texas Catholic 27
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Disability group
welcomes ruling against
right to assisted suicide
Catholic News Agency
econd 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
prescribe lethal medication for assisted suicide in Massa- purposes of” assisted suicide. She noted that the state “put forward
chusetts 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 lawmak-
ing 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,
commented Jan. 13 that “as someone who has been suicidal in
I can relate to the desire for a painless and easy way out.’
However, depression is treatable and reversible. Suicide is not. The
....... ■ _ ■ ■ •”
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
apply to the affirmative act of taking one’s own life with the assistance h m7 hope and prayer that the defeat of Question 2 will help all
of a willing physician,” and that the SJC would likely maintain “a PeoPle to understand that for our brothers and sisters confronted
strong distinction between [assisted suicide], and the withdrawal with terminal illness we can do better than offering them the means
of treatment and palliative care.” to end their lives.
Compassion & Choices, an assisted suicide advocacy group, has ^ie 2012 initiative was opposed by both the Massachusetts
said they plan to appeal the ruling, WBUR reported Jan 10. Medical Association and the Boston Herald.
Ames wrote that the state legislature could “conclude that dif-
ficulty 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
of the Suffolk Superior Court ruled that physicians who when a Pad«K has six months to live is too difficult and risky for the
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
who has prostate cancer, and Dr. Alan Steinbach, who treats patients carve out a special case outside of the norms of medical practice,
considering end-of-life problems. The legislature could, too, conclude that assisted suicide “is not
Among the arguments Kligler and Steinbach made were that pros- equivalent to permissible alternatives,” citing the difference between
ecution of a physician for manslaughter who prescribes medication assisted suicide and voluntary cessation of nutrition and hydration,
for assisted suicide “impermissibly restricts a patient’s constitutional withdrawal of life support, or palliative sedation,
right to privacy” and their “fundamental liberty interests.” Ames concluded that there appears to be a broad
They also argued that the prosecution of such physicians “violates dds issue is not best addressed by the judiciary, and that there
the constitutional right to the equal protection of law by treating are strong arguments for prohibiting assisted suicide or ensuring it
differently terminally ill adults who wish to receive [assisted suicide] occurs in an environment in which clear, thoughtful, and mandatory
and terminally ill adults who wish to hasten death by the voluntarily standards are in place to protect terminally ill patients who wish
stopping of eating and drinking (VSED), withdrawal of life support, to make an irreversible decision. The Legislature, not the Court, is
or palliative sedation.” ideally positioned to weigh those arguments and determine whether
Ames wrote in her decision that “any physician is free to provide and if so> under what restrictions, [assisted suicide] should be legally
information on the jurisdictions where [assisted suicide] is legal, authorized.
guidance and information on the procedures and requirements There are bills in both houses of the state legislature to legalize
in those jurisdictions, and referrals to physicians who can provide assisted suicide. The bills are due to be considered by the Joint
[assisted suicide] in those jurisdictions. Such conduct, without more,
does not constitute involuntary manslaughter.”
authorized.”
There are bills in both houses of the state legislature
assisted suicide. The bills are
Committee on Public Health next week.
Ruthie Pool, president of MPOWER, a group of people who
She also wrote that the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court had have experienced mental health diagnosis, trauma, or addiction,
taken pains “to preserve what it viewed as a meaningful distinction (
between death that results naturally from the withdrawal of medical Pasr’ I
equipment and death that results from affirmative human efforts,”
and that it had said the law “does not permit suicide” or “unlimited current bill in the legislature pretends otherwise,
self-determination.”
Ames said that neither of two relevant SJC decisions suggest “that
the principles that underlie the right to refuse medical treatment
•uld likely maintain “a people
to end their lives.”
The 2012 initiative
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Cottingham, Mary. South Texas Catholic (Corpus Christi, Tex.), Vol. 55, No. 2, Ed. 1, February 2020, newspaper, February 2020; Corpus Christi, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1337868/m1/27/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .