Prelate worries proponents seek to expand assisted suicide as it ‘claims its first victims’
The B.C. Catholic
The spiritual head of Catholics in Vancouver is speaking out in alarm about the effects of assisted suicide weeks after Canada made it legal.
“How can it be that, in a society that is finally beginning to recognize the equal dignity of vulnerable and disabled persons, we are introducing laws that seem to target them for assisted suicide?” wrote Archbishop J. Michael Miller, CSB, in a press release July 4.
He worried recent attempts to expand assisted suicide show society’s attitude toward people who are suffering is getting worse.
“Last week in B.C. we saw the first constitutional challenge of the new law, demanding assisted suicide for non-terminal illnesses,” he wrote.
He added that some provincial governments and medical bodies are trying to trample the conscience rights of medical professionals, while a Montreal hospital recently said it may allow assisted suicide in a palliative care unit.
“Can anyone doubt that, before long, what few protections exist will be history, just as Canada’s previous law against assisted suicide is history?”
Archbishop Miller called for redoubled efforts to reach out to people who are lonely and may be considering suicide. He also urged people to tell government officials and medical professionals that Canada needs better and more accessible palliative care.
“Why is it that in a wealthy country like Canada, most people still die without quality palliative or home care? Why is it that when suicide rates in many communities are at crisis level, we have no robust suicide prevention strategy?”
Sister John Mary Sullivan, FSE, of the Life, Marriage, and Family Office of the archdiocese, also worries that proponents of assisted suicide are already “chipping away” at the new law.
“Once you open the door to physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia, inevitably that door gets swung open further and further,” she said.
This has been seen in other countries where those practices are legal, such as the Netherlands. According to the U.S.-based Patients Rights council, guidelines created in 1981 have been “interpreted by the Dutch courts … in ever-broadening terms.”
Sister Sullivan said Catholics should counter the “slippery slope” by making their parishes a place where people feel welcome.
“The way we promote suicide prevention is by being communities that embrace the suffering individual,” she said.
“It’s renewing a parish life of individuals who know and see and connect with other individuals in their parish; where people are drawn to parish life; where they feel they have a community that knows them, and loves them, and will walk with them.”
