This past summer, New Jersey became the eighth State in the country to legalize physician assisted suicide.  Dubbed the “Death with Dignity” Act, it allows persons with only 6 months to live to request from their doctor the medication needed to put them to death.  Proponents claims that there are “protections” in the law with will prevent it from being abused, but such “protections” have not worked in the past in other States and countries.
    The Catholic Church opposes assisted suicide, viewing as another front in the Culture of Death.  While it is true, life in this world is not our ultimate home, it is still a precious gift from God, who alone is the Master of Life.  To commit suicide, even if it is because one is suffering an illness, is to reject God as the Master of Life.  Additionally, the USCCB recently published a list of top reasons to oppose assisted suicide.
    First, it is a deadly mix with our profit-driven healthcare system.  We are already seeing in Oregon and California, health insurance companies saying that they will pay the cost for assisted suicide, they will not pay for the treatment that will sustain the person’s life.
    Assisted suicide puts vulnerable persons at risk of abuse and coercion.  Once lethal drugs have been prescribed, assisted suicide laws have no requirements for assessing the patient’s consent, competency, or voluntariness. Who would know if the drugs are freely taken since there is no supervision or tracking of the drugs once they leave the pharmacy and no witnesses are required at the time of death? Elder abuse is considered a major health problem in the United States, with federal estimates that one in ten elder persons are abused.  Placing lethal drugs into the hands of abusers generates an additional major risk to elder persons.  Assisted suicide laws often allow one of the two witnesses to the request for lethal drugs to be an heir to the patient’s estate. Therefore, an heir or friends of the heir can encourage or pressure the patient to request lethal drugs and then be a witness to the request. 
    Assisted suicide laws typically appear to limit eligibility to terminally ill patients who are expected to die within six months but don’t distinguish between persons who will die within six months with treatment and those who will die within six months without treatment. This means that patients with treatable diseases (like diabetes or chronic respiratory or cardiac disease) and patients with disabilities requiring ventilator support are all eligible for lethal drugs because they would die within six months without the treatment they would normally receive. 
    Untreated pain is not among the top reasons for taking lethal drugs. Per official annual state reports, in 2016, 90% of Oregon patients seeking lethal drugs said they were doing so because they were “less able to engage in activities making life enjoyable” and were “losing autonomy,” and 49% cited being a “burden” on family, friends or caregivers. And in Washington, 52% cited being a “burden” as a reason, while only 35% cited a concern about pain.
    Despite medical literature showing that nearly 95% of those who commit suicide had a diagnosable psychiatric illness (usually treatable depression) in the months preceding suicide, the prescribing doctor and the doctor he or she selects to give a second opinion are both free to decide whether to refer suicidal patients for any psychological counseling. Per Oregon’s official annual report, from 2013-2016 less than 4% of patients who died under its assisted suicide law had been referred for counseling to check for “impaired judgment.” 
    If counseling is provided to patients seeking assisted suicide, its goal isn’t to treat the underlying disorder or depression; it’s to determine whether the disorder or depression is “causing impaired judgment [emphasis added].” The doctors or counselor can decide that, since depression is “a completely normal response” to terminal illness, the depressed patient’s judgment is not impaired.iii 
    There is compelling evidence that legalizing assisted suicide undermines efforts to maintain and improve good care for patients nearing the end of life, including patients who never wanted assisted suicide.
    Assisted suicide creates two classes of people: those whose suicides we spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year to prevent and those whose suicides we assist and treat as a positive good. We remove weapons and drugs that can cause harm to one group, while handing deadly drugs to the other, setting up yet another kind of life-threatening discrimination. 
    There are many more reasons why legalizing assisted suicide is a bad and dangerous idea. For further information, visit www.usccb.org/toliveeachday and www.patientsrightsaction.org.