Washington D.C., Feb 15, 2017 / 03:05 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A repeal of Washington, D.C.'s physician-assisted suicide law moved through the U.S. House on Monday, but is in a race against time to pass through Congress and be signed by President Trump by Friday.
Members of Congress “have the Constitutional responsibility to do this,” Gloria Purvis, host of the show “Morning Glory” on EWTN Global Catholic Radio, told CNA of the move to repeal D.C.'s “Death With Dignity Act.”
The city council did not “even seek the voice of their own people” through putting the issue to a referendum even though community leaders, disability rights groups and many African-American senior citizens opposed it, Purvis, who has also served on the National Black Catholic Congress' Leadership Commission on Social Justice, noted.
The House Oversight Committee voted 22-14 on Monday to send a measure disapproving of Washington, D.C.'s assisted suicide law to the House floor for a vote, Jason Calvi of EWTN News Nightly reported.
Back in December, the D.C. city council had passed the Death With Dignity Act, joining five states that have statutes legalizing physician-assisted suicide and Montana, where it is currently legal due to a 2009 decision by the state’s supreme court.
Congress, however, has 30 legislative days to overturn laws passed by Washington, D.C. That time period will expire after Friday. A repeal measure must pass both houses of Congress and be signed into law by the President.
The act could be effectively nullified by the House refusing to fund the D.C. health department in its appropriations bill, Purvis said. Attorney General Jeff Sessions could also take action against the law, saying it conflicts with the Assisted Suicide Funding Restriction Act from 1997 which prohibits federal funding of the practice.
Nevertheless, the act “devalues life,” is “morally repugnant,” and is “not in the interest of the common good,” Purvis insisted. In the situations of terminal patients who are suffering, “the answer is to care for them,” she said, rather than serve “the radical 'I'” mentality of a culture of autonomy.
Disability rights advocates are also pushing Congress to repeal the law, calling it “dangerous and harmful public policy.” At the same time they are urging Congress to leave in place the Affordable Care Act, saying that “any degradation in health care will drive increased demand for assisted suicide.”
Physician-assisted suicide enables serious ethical abuses to occur when someone has a terminal illness, the disability rights argued. The coalition includes the American Association of People With Disabilities, the Disability Rights Center, the National Council on Independent Living, and the group “Not Dead Yet.”
“Assisted suicide is a prescription for abuse: an heir or abusive caregiver can steer someone towards assisted suicide, witness the request, pick up the lethal dose, and in the end, even administer the drug – no witnesses are required at the death, so who would know? Many other pressures exist that can cause people with compromised health to hasten their death,” they stated.
The language of the bill could enable abuses like this, Purvis insisted, as it allows patients to “ingest” a lethal dose of drugs. A dose that is administered by a third party to an unconscious patient could technically be “ingested” by the patient and thus legal, she explained.
Patients with a terminal diagnosis can also suffer from treatable depression, a mental disorder that can affect their judgment to request a lethal prescription and which can be manipulated by others, the coalition added.
“When assisted suicide is legal, it’s the cheapest treatment available – an attractive option in our profit-driven healthcare system,” they argued.
Civic efforts to fight teen suicide are also undermined by the message of this bill, Purvis said, as it implies that some lives are not worth living.
Such legislation purports to bring greater empowerment and freedom to sick patients, but it’s an ethical “slippery slope,” Professor Charles Camosy of Fordham University argued in a recent opinion piece in the New York Daily News.
Although supporters will argue that assisted suicide helps terminal patients avoid intense suffering and pain, patients will “far more likely” choose it out of “not wanting to be a burden on others,” he wrote.
“On other issues, liberals rightly focus on how laws affect vulnerable populations,” he said, explaining that “liberals in Massachusetts” defeated the issue at the ballot box because they were “worried that older people, already thought to be a drain or burden in a culture which worships youth and capital production, might be pressured to consider assisted suicide.”
“Those of us with progressive philosophies must instead unequivocally affirm the goodness of the existence of the old and sick. Especially when our consumerist culture tells them they have no net value,” he said.
Article Archive
The clock is ticking on repeal of DC assisted suicide bill
Related Articles • More Articles
null / Credit: ShutterstockWashington, D.C. Newsroom, May 2, 2024 / 18:20 pm (CNA).The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) released a pair of emergency rules that it said are aimed at combating "misinformation" and a "deeply dishonest scare campaign" by the Biden administration about the state's new six-week pro-life law. The rules, published on May 1, establish guidance for lifesaving measures and clarify that certain procedures, including treatment for ectopic pregnancies, are not considered abortion and remain legal under the Florida Heartbeat Protection Act, which went into effect on Wednesday. This comes amid significant criticism over the state's pro-life law that prohibits abortions on women after six weeks of pregnancy except for in cases of rape, incest, or when the life of the mother is in danger. The new AHCA rules further clarify those exceptions. "The agency finds there is an immediate danger to th...
Oviedo Archbishop Jesús Sanz Montes accused the government of focusing "in a biased and manipulative way on the problem of pedophilia as something attributable only to the Catholic Church." / Credit: Archdiocese of OviedoACI Prensa Staff, May 2, 2024 / 18:50 pm (CNA)."They have done it again. It is a kind of obsessive mantra every time they need a smokescreen to distract from the real problems we have and to which they so clumsily and insidiously apply their tortuous governance."That is how the archbishop of Oviedo, Jesús Sanz Montes, began a letter released this week titled "The Accusing Rattle" in which he responds to the socialist government's announcement of an exclusive plan to address sexual and power abuses committed within the Catholic Church.In the opinion of the prelate, the country's executive "has tried to focus in a biased and manipulative way on the problem of pedophilia as something attributable only to the Catholic Church, which represents an exclusive...
Pope Francis meets with 300 priests taking part in the World Meeting of Parish Priests on May 2, 2024, at the Vatican. / Credit: Vatican MediaRome Newsroom, May 2, 2024 / 12:41 pm (CNA).Pope Francis published a letter on Thursday addressed to all parish priests in the world with his advice for building a missionary Church in which all the baptized share in the mission of proclaiming the Gospel."Parish communities increasingly need to become places from which the baptized set out as missionary disciples and to which they return, full of joy, in order to share the wonders worked by the Lord through their witness," Pope Francis wrote in the letter published on May 2.The pope presented the letter to 300 priests participating in the Synod on Synodality's "World Meeting of Parish Priests" during an audience at the Vatican, saying that their meeting is "an opportunity to remember in my prayers all of the parish priests in the world to whom I address these words with great affection."P...