c. 1996 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ The nation’s Roman Catholic bishops Wednesday (Nov. 13) said the U.S. Supreme Court debate over assisted suicide has brought the United States to”a new crossroads”in the ongoing discussion over the value placed by society on human life.

The National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) urged the high court to reject physician-assisted suicide.”No court, no legislature, no human being has the right to say that any human life is worthless or that any human being is of less value than another,”the bishops said in a statement.

Issued in the name of Cleveland Bishop Anthony Pilla, president of the bishops’ conference, the statement asked:”Will our nation take the path that leads to equal concern for every human life? Or will we arrive at a place where the elderly, disabled and terminally ill are seen as having lives not worth living?” Catholic teaching holds that suicide _ assisted or otherwise _ contradicts God’s natural order and is an assault on the dignity of life. The bishops’ statement said,”Catholics are standing with those who are vulnerable and marginalized, those who often lack a voice in our nations’ policies and are at serious risk of having some demeaning and lethal `values’ imposed on them from the outside.” The bishops’ statement, adopted by a standing affirmation of the nearly 300 bishops in attendance at the four-day fall meeting here, came one day after the Clinton administration for the first time voiced its official opposition to physician-assisted suicide. The White House stand came in a legal brief filed Tuesday in connection with a U.S. Supreme Court review of New York and Washington state laws prohibiting euthanasia.

Those state laws were struck down by lower federal courts as unconstitutional after challenges by doctors and some terminally ill patients. The states have appealed to the high court to have the laws reinstated.

The Catholic Health Association and the Orthodox Jewish groups Agudath Israel of America and the Orthodox Union’s Institute for Public Affairs were among the religious organizations also filing”friend-of-the-court”briefs in support of the state laws against physician-assisted suicide.

Appended to the Catholic group’s brief was a letter from Chicago Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, who Wednesday was reported by his fellow bishops to be near death from pancreatic cancer. Bernardin recently choose to halt his chemotherapy treatments.”As one who is dying,”Bernardin wrote in urging rejection of the state laws,”I have especially come to appreciate the gift of life. … There can be no such thing as a `right to assisted suicide’ because there can be no legal and moral order which tolerates the killing of innocent life, even if the agent of death is self-administered. Creating a new `right’ to assisted suicide will endanger society and send a false signal that a less than `perfect’ life is not worth living.” Representing the White House, Solicitor General Walter E. Dellinger wrote in his brief that”there is an important and common-sense distinction between withdrawing artificial supports so that a disease will progress to its inevitable end, and providing chemicals to be used to kill someone.” Dellinger also drew sharp distinction between the legal right to abortion and the claims that there exists a right to die with the help of a physician. When abortion is prohibited, a woman is forced to take responsibility for a life other than her own, Dellinger said. In euthanasia, only the life of the individual is involved, he said.

In their statement, the Catholic bishops also said”remarkably, few have noticed that frail, elderly and terminally ill people oppose assisted suicide more than other Americans.”The assisted-suicide agenda is moving forward chiefly with vocal support from the young, the able-bodied and the affluent, who may even think that their parents and grandparents share their enthusiasm. They are wrong,”the bishops said.

Tuesday was the deadline for filing briefs in support of the Washington and New York state laws. The American Medical Association, the American Nurses Association and the American Psychiatric Association were among the 30 groups that filed briefs in support of the state bans.

Lawyers challenging the bans say they will also have the support of some religious groups, The Washington Post reported, although none were named. The deadline for briefs in support of euthanasia is Dec. 10.

In most states, there are no legal penalties against suicide. But it is against the law in 47 states for any person to aid another individual in committing suicide.

END RNS