After facing defeat with the Nov. passage of Proposition 71, "The Embryo Cloning and Stem Cell Research Bond Act," the California Catholic Conference (CCC) is again gearing up to fight another issue they call "an assault on life."
State assembly members Patty Berg (D-Santa Rosa) and Lloyd Levine (D-Van Nuys) recently announced they are drafting a bill that would legalize assisted suicide in California. If passed, California would become the second state in the nation, after Oregon, to permit physician-assisted death.
"This issue just won't die," said CCC spokeswoman Carol Hogan. "How many times do [Californians] have to say no before these people let go?"
In 1992, Californians voted down an assisted suicide ballot initiative; in 1999, a bill introduced by former Democratic Assemblywoman Dion Aroner failed. Still, proponents feel the climate is right in California to win enough support for passage of this bill.
"We wouldn't be doing it if we didn't think we could get it passed. There's a lot of concern that terminally ill people are suffering needlessly," Stuart Waldman, Levine's chief of staff, recently told the Oakland Tribune.
But despite California voters' support for embryonic research, opponents say public support for assisted suicide has not changed.
"It is evident that both the electorate and their elected representatives have chosen a more sophisticated and compassionate response to end-of-life issues," said Hogan.
"Compassion means to suffer with the dying and to make sure they get adequate care and pain management. It's a cop-out to kill and we don't believe most people want this." There are other ways, she said, to ease end of life suffering.
"Instead of attacking the disease, will we just be attacking the person with the disease?" asked Vincentian Father Richard Benson, academic dean and professor of moral theology at St. John's Seminary in Camarillo. "Will it be taken advantage of by health care companies? Instead of fighting disease, will people just be encouraged to commit suicide so as not to spend money on research to keep people alive longer?"
In explaining the Catholic Church's opposition to assisted suicide, outgoing USCCB president Bishop Wilton Gregory writes, "Our opposition to physician-assisted suicide is not to hinder freedom but to protect the right to die with human and Christian dignity."
Implicit in this right is the need to protect the right of every person to a natural death through three concomitant beliefs: physical life is a fundamental but not an absolute good; the right to sufficient and effective pain treatment; and the right to forego extraordinary means noted Father Benson.
"Decisions about foregoing extraordinary means [of prolonging life] belong to the patient and are not contrary to Catholic teaching. It is just removing a medical process that is stretching out the dying process," said Father Benson. "The Catholic position is that all life comes from God and goes back to God, so we don't intervene."
Father Benson noted that church teaching does not limit pain control even though life may be shortened by the medications needed to control extreme pain.
Lack of adequate pain control has been used by those on both sides of the issue to bolster their positions.
Proponents of assisted suicide say that it is precisely this issue of uncontrollable pain that makes legalized assisted suicide necessary and humane. Opponents say permitting physician-assisted suicide lets the medical establishment off the hook for developing adequate methods of pain control.
"[The push for legalizing assisted suicide] comes from a society not good at taking care of the sick and elderly and many in the medical field that are not adept at pain control," said Father Benson.
"Physicians and other caregivers have the obligation to maintain life and to relieve pain. It is important to point out that the effective treatment of pain guarantees that no one will suffer a painful death," said Bishop Gregory. "From a moral perspective, a physician may responsibly administer medications to control or alleviate pain even when doing so may hasten death. The physician's intention is not to kill the patient but to relieve pain effectively with the medicines available."
The CCC is currently putting together a broad coalition of Catholic organizations, medical associations, right-to-life groups, workers unions and disability advocacy groups to fight the upcoming legislation. For more information on the moral, medical, legal and practical aspects of end-of-life issues visit the CCC website, www.embracingourdying.com. |