I recently read Jojo Moyes’ “Me Before You” about a young man, paralyzed in a motorcycle accident who heads off to an assisted-suicide clinic. Society will continue to attempt to convince us that allowing others to express their “right to choose” is a selfless act. Yet the challenge to accept God’s right to choose when we die is much more difficult.
In this year’s election, voters went against nearly all of the ballot initiatives backed by Catholic leaders and advocates, except the referendums on minimum wage increases and gun control measures.
The American Medical Association (AMA) is studying whether to adopt a neutral stance toward physician-assisted suicide, a turn from its long-held opposition to the practice.
Applying Catholic principles about death and dying issues to New York State laws was the topic for Kathleen Gallagher of the New York State Catholic Conference, when she visited Brooklyn Wednesday evening, Oct. 5.
The State Legislature returns to Albany this week for two final months of the 2016 Session. We urge lawmakers to defeat legislation that would legalize doctor-assisted suicide. Proponents of assisted suicide have targeted our state and hope to have lawmakers voting on this before the end of June.
“Choice” rings hollow when pressures come from family members who increasingly see their financial resources being drained and their loved ones as burdens; when health insurance companies will pay for a lethal dose of drugs, but deny a claim for expensive chemotherapy treatments; when health providers subtly make judgment calls about whose lives are worth living and whose are not; and when the mechanisms of our very government sanction and assist in death-making.
Dear Editor: Thank you for reporting on “A Catholic Look at End of Life Issues,” (Nov. 12). It is a very important and all too avoided subject. Compassion and Choices (the agency directing the physician-assisted suicide movement) has run a tremendously successful campaign to devalue human life when its truly vulnerable – that is sinful.
Having a conversation about end-of-life care is awkward and difficult, but it can help in making decisions about what matters most when the time comes. That was the focus of “Journey to Healing: End of Life Conversations and the Catholic Perspective,” a free conference hosted by Catholic Charities Bereavement Services.
The role of religion in society or the issue of Church and State are well controverted these days. Perhaps the example of the issue of assisted suicide may help us to clarify our thinking on this and other important matters.
Dear Editor: The recent vote by a plurality of over 100 votes in the British House of Commons against the legal authorization of assisted suicide in the United Kingdom is perhaps one of the few votes on a bill which would have opened the floodgates to greater evil procedures. The elected members of that body […]
