Assisted Suicide

While the NJCC opposed New Jersey’s aid in dying legislation, the Catholic Church always has provided and discussed palliative and hospice care options to our patients and their families.
 
Through palliative and hospice care, the tools to alleviate pain and to bring physical, psychological and spiritual comfort to terminally ill patients are available more today than ever before.  As a society, we need to increase our efforts to inform both the medical community and the general public about the wonderful advances in palliative and hospice care.
 
Q & A on the Catholic Position on Assisted Suicide
 
First Question: 
 
Will the Catholic Church in New Jersey issue a statement forbidding doctors in Catholic  hospitals or health care facilities to write prescription under the new law?
 
There is no necessity for a Catholic healthcare entity (whether they be a hospital, a long term facility, an out-patient facility or whatever) to issue a release, a statement, or an appeal to doctors and patients as the August 1, 2019 effective date approaches because to be Catholic an entity must comply with the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services (commonly referred to as the ERDs) that are issued by the United State Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Some quotes from the ERDs that clarify the answer:
 
“Effective management of pain in all its forms is critical in the appropriate care of the dying” …
 
“We have a duty to preserve our life and to use it for the glory of God, but the duty to preserve life is not absolute, for we may reject life-prolonging procedures that are insufficiently beneficial or excessively burdensome. Suicide and euthanasia are never morally acceptable options.” …
 
“The task of medicine is to care even when it cannot cure.”  …
 
“The use of life-sustaining technology is judged in light of the Christian meaning of life, suffering, and death. In this way two extremes are avoided: on the one hand, an insistence on useless or burdensome technology even when a patient may legitimately wish to forgo it and, on the other hand, the withdrawal of technology with the intention of causing death.” …
 
The Church’s teaching authority has addressed the moral issues concerning medically assisted nutrition and hydration. We are guided on this issue by Catholic teaching against euthanasia, which is “an action or an omission which of itself or by intention causes death, in order that all suffering may in this way be eliminated.” While medically assisted nutrition and hydration are not morally obligatory in certain cases, these forms of basic care should in principle be provided to all patients who need them, including patients diagnosed as being in a “persistent vegetative state” (PVS), because even the most severely debilitated and helpless patient retains the full dignity of a human person and must receive ordinary and proportionate care.”  …
 
Specific Ethical and Religious Directives that all Catholic entities must follow
in order to be Catholic:
 
60. Euthanasia is an action or omission that of itself or by intention causes death in order to alleviate suffering. Catholic health care institutions may never condone or participate in euthanasia or assisted suicide in any way. Dying patients who request euthanasia should receive loving care, psychological and spiritual support, and appropriate remedies for pain and other symptoms so that they can live with dignity until the time of natural death.
 
61. Patients should be kept as free of pain as possible so that they may die comfortably and with dignity, and in the place where they wish to die. Since a person has the right to prepare for his or her death while fully conscious, he or she should not be deprived of consciousness without a compelling reason. Medicines capable of alleviating or suppressing pain may be given to a dying person, even if this therapy may indirectly shorten the person’s life so long as the intent is not to hasten death. Patients experiencing suffering that cannot be alleviated should be helped to appreciate the Christian understanding of redemptive suffering.
 
Second Question:
 
Do the ERDs apply to individuals who are not employees but who have privileges to practice in a Catholic facility?
 
The ERDs apply to doctors and others employed by a Catholic entity and to those who are not employees but who have privileges to practice in a Catholic entity when they are practicing in the Catholic facility.
 
There is no way that a Catholic entity can control the activities of a doctor who is not an employee in that doctor’s private practice.
 
Third Question:
 
Do the ERDs apply to outside hospice services that operate in a Catholic facility?
 
Any hospice service working in a Catholic entity can only work in the Catholic entity if they agree to comply with the ERDs.
 
If a hospice medical personnel administered the death causing drugs to a patient in a Catholic facility, that individual or individuals would lose their privileges to practice in a Catholic facility.