250 attend film on assisted suicide

By Tanya Connor

The Catholic Free Press

Lay people are called to change the culture through the lens of the Church, but in the United States they have not picked up the baton, Bishop McManus said during a presentation about physician assisted suicide May 17. Their role, highlighted by Vatican Council II, goes beyond things like simply distributing Communion at Mass.

The bishop was one of three panelists speaking after the showing of the film Fatal FLAWS at Assumption College May 17. Presenting the film and discussion was Witness for Life, which works to prevent the legalization of physician assisted suicide and warns about pitfalls of advanced directives.

Kristine Correira, a panelist and Witness for Life co-chairperson, said Kevin Dunn gave her access to the film for this showing. DunnMedia produced the film in association with The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, according to the website fatalflawsfilm.com. 

The film shows Mr. Dunn interviewing proponents and opponents of physician assisted suicide in different countries. He decries the practice, which some of those interviewed helped facilitate or were threatened by.

Mrs. Correira, a physician assistant and a bioethicist certified by the National Catholic Bioethics Center, said she bought the Fatal FLAWS DVD, which other groups can borrow. 

“I would love to show it if I could,” said Deacon Scott Colley, who serves Our Lady Immaculate and St. Francis of Assisi parishes in Athol and St. Peter Parish in Petersham. 

In the panel discussion Bishop McManus raised a pastoral problem presented by euthanasia and physician assisted suicide. He said when a person decides to end his or her life this way, if it is a fully rational decision, that person cannot be buried from the Catholic Church. 

The Catholic Church has been in the forefront in fighting euthanasia and physician assisted suicide, he said, and spoke of documents that guide Catholics’ reflection on these issues, attempting to form their consciences.

The Declaration on Euthanasia, published by the Vatican’s Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1980, said intentionally causing one’s own death is as wrong as murder; it’s a rejection of God’s plan and a failure to love oneself, the bishop said. He said, however, that sometimes psychological problems could diminish or remove a person’s responsibility for this sin. 

Pope John Paul II, in his 1995 encyclical “The Gospel of Life,” applied unchanged, unchangeable Church teaching about abortion to euthanasia, Bishop McManus said.

Asked how to get this film out to the masses, Bishop McManus said Christ the King Parish in Worcester took the lead. He also said there will be a seminar in June for priests of the diocese. 

Mrs. Correira, a Christ the King parishioner, told The Catholic Free Press that their pastor, Msgr. Thomas J. Sullivan, publicized the film’s showing and told parishioners he would attend. About one-fifth of the nearly 200 people who registered were from Christ the King, she said. (She said about 250 people attended.)

Msgr. Sullivan helped start Witness for Life, he and the parish’s deacons are on its board, and he erected Witness for Life banners on the church lawn and had its St. Joseph Initiative scripts read at Masses, she noted. The other panelist, Patrick Derr, is also a member of Christ the King, she said.

Professor Derr, who teaches philosophy at Clark University, said Massachusetts can’t have a slippery slope; it will have an instant catastrophe if it legalizes physician assisted suicide. 

Unlike in Oregon, where physician assisted suicide is legal, Massachusetts grants the same medical rights to incompetent persons as to competent persons, he said. Incompetent persons’ guardians may make decisions for them that others may not think  prudent.

This comes from the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision “Superintendent of Belchertown State School v. Saikewicz,” which interpreted the state Constitution, he said.

So those seeking to legalize physician assisted suicide in Massachusetts, purportedly just for competent persons, included a “severability clause,” Professor Derr said. 

It says that if any part of the proposed law is ever found invalid, the rest of it would not be affected, he said. That way if anyone, citing the Saikewicz decision, challenged the exclusion of incompetent persons, physician assisted suicide would remain legal.

Given this, Professor Derr said, a fair question for legislators is: “Why don’t you add in a non-severability clause?” 

If they really believe physician assisted suicide can be limited to competent adults, such a clause would prevent it from being extended to the incompetent, he explained. Instead, the whole law would be nullified if the State Supreme Court found the competence requirement illegal because of Saikewicz.

Mrs. Correira warned about MOLST (Massachusetts Medical Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment). It’s not that these forms aren’t useful, she said, but asked, “What exactly are you signing away?” If, for example, you say you don’t want to be transferred to the hospital, that could prevent you from being taken for a minor, temporary need. She said everyone should have a health care proxy who can make decisions for them if necessary.

For more information on MOLST
https://worcesterdiocese.org/molst