Assisted suicide is wrong

Richard A. Sokerka

Five states have assisted-suicide laws, while several others, including New Jersey, are examining such legislation.

Supporters argue that assisted suicide gives the terminally ill a “death with dignity.”

Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, debunked that argument in an address earlier this month to the Canadian Catholic Bioethics Institute in St. Michael’s Cathedral Basilica in Toronto. He said assisted suicide is “deceptively described as ‘aid in dying.’ This is a fabricated expression whose only rhetorical function is to conceal the very nature of the death-dealing action it describes.”

“The use of euphemism or obscure terminology in issues involving life and death should always alert us to an effort to hide the truth,” Cardinal Mueller said.

As an example, he pointed to the New York Task Force on Life and Law that had been convened in the 1990s by then-New York Gov. Mario Cuomo. “The commission began its work expecting to recommend legal assisted suicide. But when they studied the question carefully and dispassionately, they quickly realized that the toxic and deadly social pathologies that would inevitably accompany legalization were too grave and severe to justify such a course of action,” the cardinal said. “The committee recommended that assisted suicide and euthanasia should remain illegal, because decriminalizing these practices would inexorably lead to grave and lethal new forms of fraud, abuse, coercion and discrimination against the disabled, poor, elderly, and minorities; deadly forms of coercion by insurers and faithless family members; corrosion of the doctor-patient relationship; an eventual shift to non-voluntary and involuntary euthanasia; and widespread neglect of treatment for mental illness and pain management.”

Cardinal Mueller also stressed the Church’s teaching on euthanasia: “The Catholic Church has long recognized that every human being, no matter his or her condition or circumstance, is possessed of inalienable and equal dignity. This beautiful truth about the human person and his matchless worth is intelligible and self-evident to every person of good will, regardless of faith tradition.”

Our lawmakers, who are contemplating such legislation, need to take a step back and look at all the negative effects assisted suicide would have on our society. As Cardinal Mueller pointed out, “The goodness of a society can be measured by how well it treats and protects its weakest and most vulnerable members.”