Assisted suicide bill

CLIFTON  The state Assembly passed a bill Oct. 20 that would allow physicians to prescribe lethal drugs to end the lives of individuals considered to be terminally ill. In a vote with 41 in favor and 28 opposed with five abstentions, the Assem­bly passed A2451, known as “Aid in Dying for the Terminally Ill Act” that would legalize publicly funded assisted suicide in New Jersey. The bill has now been taken up in the state Senate and a vote on it could be posted in the Senate as early as today, Nov. 3.

The Diocesan Respect Life Office is asking the faithful to take action by contacting their elected representatives and telling them to vote against the bill.

Dr. Mary Mazzarella, a retired pediatrician who serves as diocesan director of the Respect Life Office, said, “We Catholics believe that life is a gift from God and as such it is to be considered sacred from natural conception to natural death. To purposely cause death at either end of this spectrum is morally unacceptable. Physician-assisted suicide takes undue advantage of a person in a vulnerable state and deprives that person of more time to experience God’s grace in their lives.”

If this bill becomes law, patients suffering from a terminal disease would be allowed to request lethal drugs they self-administer to end their lives. To obtain these drugs, patients would first need to make a verbal request for a prescription to end their life from their attending physician. That request would be followed by a second verbal request at least 15 days later and one request in writing signed by two witnesses. In addition, the attending physician would have to offer the patient a chance to rescind the request. A consulting physician would then be called upon to certify the original diagnosis and reaffirm that the patient is capable of making the decision to end their life. A patient must have a terminal prognosis of six months or less to live to request and be prescribed the lethal dose under the bill. If the bill becomes law, New Jersey would be the sixth state to make assisted-suicide legal.

While supporters of the bill argue assisted suicide gives the terminally ill “death with dignity” and an end to their suffering, Dr. Mazzarella believes “instead of providing death, we should provide love and compassion to encourage patients to be aware of their dignity and self worth.”

As a physician, Dr. Mazzarella reminds all it is immoral to purposely end the life of a patient. “It is against the Hippocratic Oath I took if I provide medication to cause the death of a person or to cause an abortion.”

An area that raises red flags about the bill is the cause of death — which would be stated on a person’s death certificate as the underlying terminal illness — not suicide or self-administered drugs as the cause of death. Dr. Mazzarella said, “As a physician, it is difficult for me to comprehend how this bill justifies how a doctor can falsify the real cause of death.”

Beyond the immoral implications of allowing a patient to commit physician-assisted suicide, health insurance companies have a record in states, like California, Vermont and Oregon, where assisted suicide is legal, to have denied individuals health care for their terminal illnesses but instead offered them low-cost drugs to end their lives.

The N.J. Catholic Conference (NJCC), the public policy arm of the state’s bishops, encourages the faithful to take action against the N.J. bill.

“This assisted suicide bill is a direct threat to anyone viewed as a cost liability to an insurance company. In an era of cost control and managed care, patients with lingering illnesses may be branded as an economic liability, and decisions to encourage death could be driven by cost,” Patrick Brannigan, executive director for the N.J. Catholic Conference, said.

Assemblyman Jay Webber (R-Morris), who opposes the bill, made an impassioned plea on the N.J. Assembly floor Oct. 20 on the dangers of the bill. “This proposal for taxpayer-funded assisted suicide has a major impact on all of us, not just for the individual circumstances we might find ourselves in, but as a matter of public policy what it says about who we are as a society, and who we want to be as a society. I don’t think this bill makes our state more compassionate. When someone is reaching the end of their life and they are in pain or they are in fear and they don’t know what comes next or they don’t know what to do, I think we have an obligation to them to love them and to help them through that time, not to encourage them to prematurely end their lives.

“I don’t want to live in a state or country that gives the impression to people who are disabled, or sick, or dying that they have an obligation to end it quickly, to preserve their assets for us, or so that they’re not a burden for us. They don’t have an obligation to us, we have an obligation to them,” he said.

The bill would not require a physician to be present when a patient takes the lethal prescription. In fact, the patient does not even have to notify family members of the decision. However, two witnesses, who are not related, are required.

The NJCC also raises concerns about the message this bill sends to troubled youth and those who served the military. Brannigan said, “If we pass a law that says it is OK to end your life if you have pain what would we be telling our youth who are troubled? What would S2474 be telling our veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder? Would we be saying — it’s OK to take the path of suicide?”

Dr. Mazzarella who has served for decades as a physician, said, “A six-month prognosis for a terminal illness is not always accurate, there is always hope. For those who are truly suffering with a terminal illness, as doctors we are called to make a person feel comfortable. We have become as a society too arrogant and too self centered to acknowledge the existence of God and his commandment: ‘Thou Shall Not Kill,’”

“People at the end of their lives, when they are suffering from a debilitating illness, if they have just a little bit of time left in this world, we can treat them with palliative care, with hospice care, with far greater generosity than the encouragement to prematurely end their lives,” said Assemblyman Webber to his colleagues in the Assembly. “We have better solutions. This state is better than this. I urge you to vote ‘No.’”

[For information or to send a letter to an elected representative to vote against the bill, go to www.njcatholic.org/faith-in-action.]