The Latest From Clem

June 26, 2009 05:03 PM

In defence of the Vatican statement on Hydration and persistent vegetative state

This issue of Ethics & Medics offers two replies to the recent statement of the Consortium of Jesuit Bioethics Programs, the first reply by the ethicists of The National Catholic ­Bioethics Center, and the second by a distinguished group of Catholic scholars interested in issues of bioethics. At stake is whether the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, authored by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, should be revised in light of recent statements from the Vatican on the provision of food and water for patients in a persistent vegetative state. These changes would affect the end of the introduction to Part V of the Directives, “Issues in Care for the Dying,” and directive 58, concerning the administration of medically assisted food and water. The members of the Jesuit Consortium have argued against any revision.—Ed.

The Consortium of Jesuit Bioethics Programs, a group of seven bioethics programs at Jesuit universities in the United States, has published a critique of papal teaching on providing food and water to patients in a persistent vegetative state (PVS). Their article “Undue Burden? The Vatican and Artificial Nutrition and Hydration,” was printed in the February 13, 2009, issue of Commonweal.

In the article, they make a wide range of claims about the March 2004 address of John Paul II on life-sustaining treatments and the vegetative state, and about the August 2007 response from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) to questions from the U.S. Conference of Catholic ­Bishops concerning artificial ­nutrition and ­hydration (ANH).(1) The Consortium claims, for example, that the Vatican now mandates percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) tubes for a broad class of patients; that many patients will be deprived of the benefits of hand-feeding; that Church teaching will impose heavy financial burdens on patients and their families; and most significantly, that the Vatican has infringed on patient autonomy.
In this brief response, we show that these claims are false and that the authors of the Consortium have not properly understood the documents in question.

General Observation

The purpose of these two Vatican documents was to address the moral obligation to provide food and water to patients in a PVS. These are patients who cannot decide such matters for themselves and so must rely on loved ones and health care workers to make the proper decisions for them. Given the tendency of some to argue that patients in a PVS should be deprived of food and water, it was not surprising that the Vatican would wish to speak to the moral aspects of this issue.

The provision of food and water to patients who are in a vegetative state and who are otherwise healthy is morally obligatory, but this does not mean that ANH is mandatory for all patients who are having difficulty eating and drinking. Although it should be expected that other patients who are not in a PVS but suffer similar cognitive disabilities should also receive food and water as needed, the Consortium’s claim that John Paul II’s address “defines ANH as ­ordinary and obligatory” (Commonweal, 14) is simply false.

Is Tube-Feeding Now Preferable?

First of all, and most importantly, the 2004 address and the 2007 response both allow for the administration of food and water by either natural or artificial means. When the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops inquired whether the administration of food and water “by either natural or artificial means” was morally obligatory for patients in a PVS, the CDF’s response stated that the provision of food and water is necessary “even by artificial means.” The phrase “even by artificial means” presupposes that natural means of providing food and water are preferable whenever they are possible. The Consortium, however, ­asserts that the Vatican, in these two documents, holds that artificial means of feeding are required not only for patients in a PVS, but for all terminal patients whatsoever.

In many cases, patients can still feed themselves at the end of life. Those who cannot may still be effectively ­hand-fed. Because tube-feeding remains a measure of last resort, hand-feeding may continue for some time even if it does not provide the patient with full nutritional requirements. Among those who cannot be hand-fed and who are near death, a simple intravenous line often proves to be the best means of providing comfort. The Vatican documents do not declare tube-feeding to be mandatory for all patients at the end of life, nor do they abandon the commonsense view that the simplest and most humane way of feeding patients is the best.

Given the false premise that the Vatican now “defines ANH as ordinary and obligatory,” various absurd conclusions follow. One is that many patients will be deprived of the benefits of hand-feeding under Church teaching.

The authors ask us to believe that the Church no longer supports the hand-feeding of patients. The authors state, “Although hand feeding takes more time, we urge families and health-care workers to provide hand-feeding as an alternative to ANH whenever nutritional needs can be met equally well in this manner” (14). This is proposed as if it were a course of action that is preferable to what is advocated in the Vatican documents, but in fact, there is nothing in the 2004 address or the 2007 response that suggests opposition to hand-feeding. When faced with the choice of natural or artificial means, the natural means of hand-feeding is preferable in almost every case where it is possible.

The Consortium also states that an accurate reading of recent Church teaching requires patients with end-stage Alzheimer’s to be tube-fed, even though scientific evidence suggests that such patients would not live longer by using this method than if hand-fed. We would only note that if it is true that patients with Alzheimer’s do not live any longer when they are tube-fed instead of hand-fed, and if tube-feeding offers no other benefits or advantages to such patients, then it should be obvious that they ought to be hand-fed when that is possible. The claim that the Church would object to such an approach, and demand that patients be placed on tube-feeding even though it would provide no benefit, is disingenuous.

Are There Enormous New Costs?

Yet another misleading claim is that a great many families, now compelled to use tube-feeding, will be burdened with enormous costs. Although the estimated annual cost of caring for a loved one on a PEG tube at home ($9,000 to $25,000 a year) and in a professional ­setting ($60,000 a year) can seem high, this problem affects any patient who has suffered an incapacitating medical event, whether it requires tube-feeding or not. The costs arise not so much from the tube-feeding itself (which is ­generally ­inexpensive and covered by insurance), but from the custodial care required to meet the patient’s basic needs.

In a society as wealthy as ours, it is reasonable to expect that these basic human needs should be met. As already noted, the Church allows for the provision of food and water through either natural or artificial means; it does not mandate the artificial over the natural. In the vast majority of cases, the natural means of feeding will be appropriate. At other times, an intravenous line will be sufficient. If there are genuine cases of fiscal hardship because of the need for extended custodial care, they will be what the CDF calls physical impossibilities, and thus not obligatory.(2) But such cases would not be expected to occur with any great frequency in the United States. We should change the law on medical reimbursements, if that is necessary, rather than abandon these patients.

The Consortium’s concern about the high costs of tube-feeding is inconsistent when we compare it to what they say about hand-feeding. The Consortium states that we should prefer hand-feeding, whenever possible, even though it is more expensive than tube-feeding. If the authors object to tube-feeding because of its attendant custodial expense, what prompts them to favor a method that is even more expensive?

Has Patient Autonomy Been Infringed?

Finally, we come to what, according to the ­Consortium, is the most egregious error in recent Church ­teaching: ­Patients who previously could refuse burdensome ­interventions are no longer allowed to do so ­because “the papal address defines ANH as ordinary and ­obligatory—­regardless of the patient’s judgment” (14). We have ­already pointed out that the first half of this claim is false. Church teaching does not require ANH, but it does require that ­patients receive food and water by either natural or ­artificial means.

In connection with this error, the Consortium states that even “though John Paul II explicitly maintains that providing ANH is not a medical act, the reality is that within the fields of medicine and law, the practice generally is viewed as a medical treatment” (14). John Paul II certainly understood that the insertion of a PEG tube is a medical procedure. The suggestion that he was ­uninformed on this point is unfair. In his address, the Holy Father did not say that the provision of ANH “is not a medical act”; he said that the provision of food and water is not a medical act. (3) Again, there is a great deal of difference between these two statements. The provision of food and water is a part of ordinary care.
If medical treatment concerns the cure or ­amelioration of a pathological condition, then food and water are not medical treatments. They do not cure or ameliorate hunger and thirst; they satisfy these desires, which are natural to the human condition. We will never be ­without these needs. Food and water are like blankets, clean ­surroundings, physical movement, and human contact—they form the basic elements of care that are necessary for all those who suffer illness.
Every patient has the right to direct his or her own course of treatment and care. There are no new ­restrictions on this freedom. The CDF’s commentary on their response specifically states that anyone who experiences “excessive physical discomfort” may abandon even food and water if it becomes too “burdensome.”(4) This will be a decision of the patient, or of the designated health care proxy, but given modern methods of palliative care, the experience of this kind of suffering typically can be resolved or ­significantly minimized. The implication that Church documents sanction the harming of patients through the imposition of misguided and unwanted “care” is mistaken. The best interest of the patient always takes precedence in Church teaching on medical ethics.

Care is a moral duty that we owe to every patient—­indeed, to every human being, whether sick or healthy. Unlike treatment, there can be no “extraordinary” care. If care does not fulfill its purpose of either preserving life or providing comfort, then its use is unjustifiable and must be discontinued.

Most patients will remain the best judge of what truly constitutes care in their own case, but this freedom obviously cannot include the decision to commit suicide through an arbitrary refusal of food and water. Patients who are in a debilitated cognitive state cannot direct their own care, not because the Vatican has taken that decision away from them, but because they are incapacitated. Those who care for these patients are similarly constrained from bringing about their deaths through the arbitrary removal of food and water.

Not a Helpful Intervention

The Consortium’s misunderstanding of John Paul II’s address and the CDF’s response is not helpful in providing guidance to those charged with establishing policies and protocols for Catholic health care ministry. It is particularly unfortunate that their interpretation of the documents in question leads to the appearance of a division between magisterial teaching and the provision of sound health care.

The Ethicists of The National Catholic Bioethics Center
John M. Haas, Ph.D., S.T.L., K.M.
Rev. Alfred Cioffi, S.T.D., Ph.D.
Edward J. Furton, M.A., Ph.D.
Marie Hilliard, J.C.L., Ph.D., R.N.
Stephen Napier, Ph.D.
Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, Ph.D.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. John Paul II, Address to the participants in the international ­congress on “Life-Sustaining Treatments and the Vegetative State: Scientific Advances and Ethical Dilemmas” (March 20, 2004); and Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, ­“Responses to Certain Questions of the USCCB concerning Artificial Nutrition and Hydration” (August 1, 2007), reprinted in Ethics & Medics 32.11 (November 2007): 1–3.

2. CDF, “Responses to Certain Questions,” 3.

3. “I should like particularly to underline how the ­administration of water and food, even when provided by artificial means, always represents a natural means of preserving life, not a medical act. Its use, furthermore, should be considered, in principle, ordinary and proportionate, and as such ­morally obligatory, insofar and until it is seen to have attained its proper finality, which in the present case consists in ­providing nourishment to the patient and alleviation of his suffering.”

4. CDF, Commentary on “Responses to Certain Questions of the USCCB Concerning Artificial Nutrition and ­Hydration” ­(August 2007), reprinted in National Catholic Bioethics ­Quarterly 8.1 (Spring 2008): 123–127.

Posted by: Clem

May 19, 2009 12:04 PM

Amicus Curiae ...Supreme Court of Montana. Regarding "Physician Assisted Suicide

In The Supreme Court of Montana
No. DA 09-0051
State of Montana and Steve Bullock, )
in his official capacity as Attorney General ) On Appeal from the
for the State of Montana, ) First Judicial District,
Defendants-Appellants, ) Lewis & Clark County
)
vs. ))
Robert Baxter, Steven Stoelb, Stephen ) Hon. Dorothy McCarter,
Speckart, M.D., C. Paul Loehnen, M.D., ) Judge Presiding
Lar Autio, M.D., George Risi, Jr., M.D., )
and Compassion & Choices, )
Plaintiffs-Appellees. )
Brief of Physicians for Compassionate Care Education Foundation as
Amicus Curiae in Support of Defendants-Appellants
Lance Lovell Paul Benjamin Linton
Law Offices of Lance Lovell Special Counsel
175 N. 27th Street, Suite 1206 Thomas More Society
P.O. Box 1415 921 Keystone Avenue
Billings, Montana 59103-1415 Northbrook, Illinois 60062-3614
(406) 256-9300 (tel) (847) 291-3848 (tel)
(406) 256-9301 (fax) (847) 412-1594 (fax)
law@lancelovell.com PBLCONLAW@AOL.COM
Admitted Pro Hac Vice
Counsel of Record for the Amicus Of Counsel
Thomas Brejcha
President & Chief Counsel
Thomas More Society
29 S. La Salle Street, Suite 440
Chicago, Illinois 60603-1599
(312) 782-1680 (tel)
(312) 782-1887 (fax)
brejcha@AOL.COM
Admitted Pro Hac Vice
Of Counsel
(counsel for the parties listed on inside cover)
Mark S. Connell Steve Bullock
Connell Law Firm Montana Attorney General
502 West Spruce Street Jennifer Anders
P.O. Box 9108 Anthony Johnstone
Missoula, Montana 59807-9108 Assistant Attorneys General
(406) 327-1517 (tel) 215 North Sanders
(406) 327-1518 (fax) P.O. Box 201401
msc.clf@bigsky.net Helena, Montana 59620-1401
(406) 444-2036 (tel)
Kathryn L. Tucker (406) 444-3549 (fax)
c/o Compassion & Choices janders@mt.gov
P.O. Box 6404
Portland, Oregon 97228-6404 Counsel for Defendants-Appellants
(503) 525-1956 (tel)
(800) 930-0535 (fax)
Counsel for Plaintiffs-Appellees
Table of Contents
Table of Authorities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii
Statement of Issues Presented for Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Statement of the Case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Statement of the Facts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Statement of the Standard of Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Interest of the Amicus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Summary of Argument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
ARGUMENT:
I. THE PROHIBITION OF ASSISTED SUICIDE DOES NOT VIOLATE
ARTICLE II, § 10, OF THE MONTANA CONSTITUTION . . . . . . . . . . . 6
II. THE PROHIBITION OF ASSISTED SUICIDE DOES NOT VIOLATE
ARTICLE II, § 4, OF THE MONTANA CONSTITUTION . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Proof of Service
Certificate of Compliance
ii
Table of Authorities
Cases:
Armstrong v. State, 1999 MT 261, 296 Mont. 361, 989 P.2d 364 . . . . . . . . passim
Butte Community Union v. Lewis, 219 Mont. 426, 712 P.2d 1309 (1986) . . . . . . 17
Carnohan v. United States, 616 F.2d 1120 (9th Cir. 1980) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Comm’n for Women’s Affairs ex rel. A.I.A.R v. Secretary of Justice,
9 P.R. Offic. Trans. 954 (1980) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Donaldson v. Van de Kamp, 4 Cal. Rptr. 2d 59 (Ct. App. 1992) . . . . . . . . . . 10, 11
Figueroa Ferrer v. Commonwealth, 7 P.R. Offic. Trans. 278 (1978) . . . . . . . . . 20
In re Marriage Cases, 183 P.3d 384 (Cal. 2008) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
In re Mental Health of K.G.F., 2001 MT 140, 306 Mont. 1, 29 P.3d 485 . . . . . . 14
In re T.W., 551 So.2d 1186 (Fla. 1989) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Krischer v. McIver, 697 So.2d 97 (Fla. 1997) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10, 11
Oberg v. City of Billings, 207 Mont. 277, 674 P.2d 494 (1983) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
People v. Duarte Mendoza, 9 P.R. Offic. Trans. 797 (1980) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Puerto Rico Urban Renewal & Housing Corp. v. Pena Ubiles,
95 P.R.R. 301 (1967) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
R. v. Morgentaler, [1988] 1 S.C.R. 30 (Can.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
iii
R. v. United Kingdom, App. No. 10083/82,
33 Eur. Comm’n H.R. Dec. & Rep. 270 (1983) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Raich v. Ashcroft, 248 F. Supp.2d 918 (N.D. Cal. 2003),
rev’d and remanded, 352 F.3d 1222 (9th Cir. 2003),
vacated and remanded, 545 U.S. 1 (2005),
on remand, 500 F.3d 850 (9th Cir. 2007) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Rodriguez v. British Columbia (Attorney General),
[1993] 3 S.C.R. 519 (Can.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Sampson v. State, 31 P.3d 88 (Alaska 2001) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10, 11
Snetsinger v. Montana University System, 2004 MT 390,
325 Mont. 148, 104 P.3d 445 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14, 21
State v. Granger, 982 So.2d 779 (La. 2008) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
State v. Herrick, 2004 MT 323, 324 Mont. 76, 101 P.3d 755 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
State v. Nelson, 2008 MT 359, 346 Mont. 366, 195 P.3d 826 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
State v. Planned Parenthood of Alaska, 171 P.3d 577 (Alaska 2007) . . . . . . . . . 12
SW v. United Kingdom, 21 Eur. Ct. H.R. 363 (1996) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Vacco v. Quill, 521 U.S. 793 (1997) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Walker v. State, 2003 MT 134, 316 Mont. 134, 68 P.3d 872 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 701 (1997) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Wilkes v. Montana State Fund, 2008 MT 29, 341 Mont. 292, 177 P.3d 483 . . . . . 1
Wiser v. State of Montana, Dep’t of Commerce, 2006 MT 20,
331 Mont. 28, 129 P.3d 133 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
iv
Statutes:
ALASKA CONST. art. I, § 22 (Michie 2008) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
CAL. CONST. art. I, § 1 (West 2002) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
CAL. CONST. art. I, § 7 (West 2002) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
FLA. CONST. art. I, § 23 (West 2004) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
LA. CONST. art. I, § 3 (West 2006) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
MONT. CONST. art. II, § 3 (2008) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
MONT. CONST. art. II, § 4 (2008) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . passim
MONT. CONST. art. II, § 10 (2008) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . passim
MONT. CONST. art. II, § 22 (2008) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
MONT. CODE ANN. § 45-2-201(a) (2008) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
MONT . CODE ANN. § 45-5-105 (2008) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
MONT . CODE ANN.§ 50-46-101 et seq. (2008) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
P.R. CONST. ANN. art. II, § 1 (2008) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19, 20
P.R. CONST. ANN. art. II, § 8 (2008) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Other Authorities:
Matthew O. Clifford and Thomas P. Huff, Some Thoughts on the Meaning and
Scope of the Montana Constitution’s “Dignity” Clause with Possible
Applications, 61 MONT. L. REV. 301 (2000) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
v
John M. Dolan, Is Physician-Assisted Suicide Possible?,
35 DUQUESNE L. REV. 355 (1996) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Larry M. Elison and Fritz Snyder, THE MONTANA STATE CONSTITUTION
(Westport, Conn. 2001) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Juan M. Garcia-Passalacqua, PUERTO RICAN CONSTITUTIONAL LAW (1974) . . . 20
Tia Rikel Robbin, Untouched Protection from Discrimination:
Private Action in Montana’s Individual Dignity Clause,
51 MONT. L. REV. 553 (1990) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Proceedings of the Montana Constitutional Convention,
1971-1972 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . passim
Proposed 1972 Constitution for the State of Montana,
Official Text with Explanation (1972) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
1
Statement of Issues Presented for Review
Whether the prohibition of assisted suicide violates the right of privacy
guaranteed by art. II, § 10, of the Montana Constitution.
Whether the prohibition of assisted suicide violates the dignity of the human
being recognized by art. II, § 4, of the Montana Constitution.
Statement of the Case
Amicus curiae generally adopts defendants’ Statement of the Case.
Statement of the Facts
Amicus curiae generally adopts defendants’ Statement of the Facts.
Statement of the Standard of Review
The standard of review with respect to both issues is plenary. Wilkes v.
Montana State Fund, 2008 MT 29, ¶ 8, 341 Mont. 292, ¶ 8, 177 P.3d 483, ¶ 8.
2
Interest of the Amicus
Physicians for Compassionate Care Education Foundation is an association
of physicians, including primary care specialists, and other health care
professionals dedicated to preserving the traditional relation of the physician and
patient as one in which the physician’s primary task is to heal when possible,
comfort always and never intentionally harm. The Foundation promotes the health
and well being of patients by encouraging physicians to comfort patients and to
assist those who are dying by providing support systems, minimizing pain and
treating depression. The Foundation affirms the health restoring role of the
physician and works to educate the profession and the public regarding the
dangers of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide.
Physicians have the duty to safeguard human life, especially the lives of the
most vulnerable members of our society–the sick, the elderly, the disabled, the
poor, ethnic minorities and those whom society may consider unproductive and
burdensome. Physicians should use their knowledge, skills and compassion in
caring for and supporting their patients. The practice of medicine should never be
used intentionally to cause death. The relationship of trust between physician and
patient is the most important asset of physicians and is intended for the protection
of their patients.
3
Physicians for Compassionate Care Education Foundation opposes
physician-assisted suicide. The legalization of physician-assisted suicide would
undermine trust in the patient-physician relationship; change the role of the
physician in society from the traditional one of healer to that of one who facilitates
killing; and endanger the value that society places on life, especially for those who
are most vulnerable and who are near the end of life.
4
Summary of Argument
This appeal presents the stark and somber question whether Montana shall
become the first State in the Nation to authorize the practice of physician-assisted
suicide by judicial fiat, not by a vote of the people or their elected representatives.
The district court held that the prohibition of physician-assisted suicide, in the
case of terminally ill, mentally competent patients, violates the right of privacy
guaranteed by art. II, § 10, of the Montana Constitution, when considered together
with the recognition of human dignity set forth in art. II, § 4. Amicus curiae
strongly disputes that holding.
First, nothing in the state constitutional right of privacy (art. II, § 10)
secures a right to assistance in committing suicide. The district court’s reliance
upon this Court’s decision in Armstrong v. State, 1999 MT 261, 296 Mont. 361,
989 P.2d 364, in support of its holding was misplaced. The narrow holding in
Armstrong upheld the right of a patient to obtain an otherwise lawful procedure
(an abortion) from a health care professional (a physician’s assistant) who was
licensed and trained to perform the procedure. Assisted suicide, however, is
unlawful and physicians are not licensed or trained to assist their patients in killing
themselves. Physician-assisted suicide is antithetical to the nature of medicine as
a healing profession.
5
The broader holding of Armstrong, recognizing a person’s right “to make
medical judgments affecting his or her bodily integrity and health in partnership
with a chosen health care provider free from government interference,” ¶ 14, does
not extend to a decision to kill oneself with the assistance of a physician. The State
has an overriding interest in “interfering” with an individual’s privacy right to
obtain a particular treatment or procedure when there is a “medically-recognized,
bona fide health risk.” Armstrong, ¶ 62. Assisting a person in committing suicide
obviously presents such a risk.
Second, the district court’s reliance upon the “dignity” language of art. II,
§ 4, was also misplaced. The first sentence of § 4, which recognizes the dignity of
human beings as “inviolable,” expresses a core constitutional value. Protection of
that value is secured by the language of § 4 guaranteeing equal protection of the
laws (second sentence) and prohibiting discrimination in the exercise of civil and
political rights on the basis of specified categories (third sentence). The
constitutional history of § 4, as reflected in the proceedings of the Montana
Constitutional Convention, leaves no doubt that the operative language of § 4 is
embodied in the equal protection guarantee and the prohibition of certain forms of
discrimination, neither of which is implicated by the prohibition of assisted
suicide. Accordingly, the judgment of the district court should be reversed.
6
ARGUMENT
I. THE PROHIBITION OF ASSISTED SUICIDE DOES NOT VIOLATE
ART. II, § 10, OF THE MONTANA CONSTITUTION.
The district court held that the prohibition of physician-assisted suicide, at
least with respect to terminally ill, mentally competent patients, violates the right
of privacy secured by art. II, § 10 of the Montana Constitution, when considered
together with the recognition of individual dignity set forth in art. II, § 4. Decision
& Order at 17, 19, 23. Amicus submits that neither art. II, § 10 nor art. II, § 4,
considered separately or together, supports a right to assisted suicide, even in the
limited circumstances proposed by plaintiffs.
Article II, § 10, provides: “The right of individual privacy is essential to the
well being of a free society and shall not be infringed without the showing of a
compelling state interest.” MONT. CONST. art. II, § 10 (2008). The district court’s
privacy analysis relied principally upon this Court’s decision in Armstrong v.
State, 1999 MT 261, 296 Mont. 361, 989 P.2d 364. Decision & Order at 15-19.
Armstrong, however, does not support a right to physician-assisted suicide.
First, the narrow question decided in Armstrong was that art. II, § 10,
“protects a woman’s right of procreative autonomy–i.e., here, the right to seek and
to obtain a specific lawful medical procedure, a pre-viability abortion, from a
7
health care provider of her choice.” Armstrong, ¶ 14 (emphasis added). Id. at ¶ 62
(referring to an “individual’s fundamental privacy right to obtain a particular
lawful medical procedure”) (emphasis added). Unlike abortion, however, assisted
suicide is not a “lawful” medical procedure.
Second, the broader formulation adopted in Armstrong, that art. II, § 10,
“guarantees each individual the right to make medical judgments affecting his or
her bodily integrity and health in partnership with a chosen health care provider
free from government interference,” Armstrong, ¶ 14, does not support the district
court’s holding, either. Protection of the individual’s right “to make medical
judgments affecting his or her bodily integrity and health” differs radically from
an asserted right in self-destruction where not health, but death, is the desideratum.
Armstrong itself recognized that the State has an overriding interest in
“interfering” with an individual’s privacy right to obtain a particular medical
procedure or treatment when there is a “medically-recognized, bona fide health
risk, clearly and convincingly demonstrated.” Id., ¶ 62. It would be difficult to
imagine a more “bona fide health risk” than prescribing a drug that is intended to
cause the death of the patient.
Third, “it does not necessarily follow from the existence of the right to
privacy that every restriction on medical care impermissibly infringes [upon] that
See State v. Nelson, 1 2008 MT 359, ¶¶ 21-37, 346 Mont. 366, ¶¶ 21-37, 195
P.3d 826, ¶¶ 21-37, interpreting the Medical Marijuana Act, MONT. CODE ANN.
§ 50-46-101 et seq. (2008).
2 See Raich v. Ashcroft, 248 F. Supp.2d 918, 928 (N.D. Cal. 2003)
(constitutional rights of privacy and personal liberty did not afford plaintiff the
right to obtain and use marijuana for medical purposes in violation of the federal
Controlled Substances Act), rev’d and remanded, 352 F.3d 1222 (9th Cir. 2003),
vacated and remanded, 545 U.S. 1 (2005), on remand, 500 F.3d 850, 866 (9th Cir.
2007) (same).
3 See Carnohan v. United States, 616 F.2d 1120, 1122 (9th Cir. 1980)
(cancer patient had no privacy right “to obtain laetrile free of the lawful exercise
of government police power), cited with approval in Wiser, ¶ 17 fn. 1.
8
right.” Wiser v. State of Montana, Dep’t of Commerce, 2006 MT 20, ¶ 15, 331
Mont. 28, ¶ 15, 129 P.3d 133, ¶ 15. For example, whether marijuana may be used
for medical purposes is a policy matter for the legislature to address,1 not a legal
right to be conferred by the courts under the rubric of privacy.2 Similarly, there is
no privacy right to use laetrile to treat cancer.3 So, too, whether physician-assisted
suicide should be allowed is a legislative choice, not a judicial imperative.
Fourth, while recognizing that the right of privacy is implicated in health
care choices, this Court “specifically defined the right as guaranteeing access to a
chosen health care professional who had been determined ‘competent’ by the
medical community and ‘licensed’ to perform the procedure desired.” Wiser, ¶ 15,
quoting Armstrong, ¶ 62. But physicians are not “licensed” to assist their patients
4 The problematics of sanctioning a regime of physician-assisted suicide are
aggravated by the nature of the relief plaintiffs sought in this case. Plaintiffs
challenged the homicide statutes which, when construed together with the statute
on causation, MONT. CODE ANN. § 45-2-201(a) (2008), prohibit assisted suicide.
See Complaint, Prayer for Relief, ¶¶ 2, 3. Plaintiffs, however, did not challenge
the statute prohibiting aiding or soliciting suicide, MONT. CODE ANN. § 45-5-105,
which applies when “such suicide does not occur.” Under the relief sought by
plaintiffs, therefore, physicians would not be subject to prosecution if their
patients succeeded in committing suicide with their assistance (by ingesting the
lethal drugs prescribed for them), but they would be subject to prosecution if their
patients chose not to take those drugs (or died of other causes first). As a result,
physicians would have a direct personal and professional interest in ensuring that
patients for whom they prescribed lethal drugs committed suicide. Needless to say,
that interest would fatally undermine the integrity of the medical profession.
9
in killing themselves. Such assistance not only violates the criminal law, but also
contravenes ethical standards governing the profession of medicine that go back to
the time of Hippocrates. The American Medical Association, the American
Psychiatric Association, the American College of Physicians, the American
Academy of Geriatrics and the American Pain Society, among other health care
associations, have all issued position statements against physician-assisted suicide.
Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment, Exhibit No. 1 (Affidavit of Dr.
Thomas V. Caughlan, ¶ 18). Indeed, the concept of physician-assisted suicide is
antithetical to the very nature of medical practice. See John M. Dolan, Is
Physician-Assisted Suicide Possible?, 35 DUQUESNE L. REV. 355 (1996).4
Finally, as the district court itself recognized, Decision & Order at 9-10,
10
three state reviewing courts, interpreting express privacy language in their state
constitutions, have held that there is no right to assistance in committing suicide,
even for terminally ill, mentally competent patients, and that any such right, if it
does exist, is outweighed by the State’s interests in preserving human life,
preventing suicide, protecting innocent third parties and maintaining the ethical
integrity of the medical profession. Sampson v. State, 31 P.3d 88, 91-98 (Alaska
2001), Donaldson v. Van de Kamp, 4 Cal. Rptr. 2d 59, 61-65 (Ct. App. 1992), and
Krischer v. McIver, 697 So.2d 97, 100-04 (Fla. 1997). Together with the other
factors discussed above, those decisions are persuasive precedents that the right of
privacy guaranteed by art. II, § 10, does not extend to physician-assisted suicide.
II. THE PROHIBITION OF ASSISTED SUICIDE DOES NOT VIOLATE
ART. II, § 4, OF THE MONTANA CONSTITUTION.
The district court, as previously noted, held that the prohibition of assisted
suicide, at least in the circumstances sought by plaintiffs, violates the right of
privacy of the Montana Constitution (art. II, § 10), when considered together with
the recognition of individual dignity in art. II, § 4. Decision & Order at 17. The
privacy guarantee of the state constitution, as interpreted by this Court in
Armstrong, does not secure a right to physician-assisted suicide. Nor does the
constitution’s recognition of individual dignity.
“It is . . . this addition of 5 the personal integrity clause to the privacy clause
that distinguishes the analysis in this case from that of the Florida, Alaska and
California decisions.” Decision & Order at 17.
11
Article II, § 4, provides:
Individual Dignity. The dignity of the human being is
inviolable. No person shall be denied the equal protection of the
laws. Neither the state nor any person, firm, corporation, or
institution shall discriminate against any person in the exercise of his
civil or political rights on account of race, color, sex, culture, social
origin or condition, or political or religious ideas.
MONT. CONST. art. II, § 4 (2008).
The district court recognized that three States “that have an explicit right to
privacy in their state constitutions” have rejected privacy-based challenges to their
statutes prohibiting assisted suicide. Decision & Order at 9-10, citing Sampson,
Donaldson and Krischer. The court sought to distinguish these authorities,
however, noting that, unlike the Montana Constitution (art. II, § 4), there is no
explicit guarantee of individual dignity in the constitutions of Alaska, California
and Florida.5 The persuasive value of these opinions, however, cannot be so easily
dismissed. Although there is no explicit guarantee of individual dignity in their
constitutions, the supreme courts of all three States have recognized human
dignity as an implicit value their privacy guarantees are intended to protect. The
Alaska Supreme Court has explained that “the primary purpose of this section
The majority opinion is replete 6 with references to “dignity” as a value the
state privacy and due process guarantees were intended to protect. See In re
Marriage Cases, 182 P.3d at 399-401, 428-29, 434, 444-46, 452.
12
[referring to the privacy guarantee of art. I, § 22] is to protect Alaskans’ personal
privacy and dignity against unwarranted intrusions by the State.” State v. Planned
Parenthood of Alaska, 171 P.3d 577, 581 (Alaska 2007) (citation and internal
quotation marks omitted) (emphasis added). In its recent decision requiring the
State to recognize same-sex marriages, the California Supreme Court held that one
of the “core elements” of the state constitutional right to marry guaranteed by the
privacy (art. I, § 1) and due process (art. I, § 7) provisions of the state constitution
is “the right of same-sex couples to have their official family relationship accorded
the same dignity, respect, and stature as that accorded to all other officially
recognized family relationships.” In re Marriage Cases, 183 P.3d 384, 434 (Cal.
2008) (emphasis added).6 And in a decision striking down the State’s parental
consent statute, the Florida Supreme Court held that the state right of privacy (art.
I, § 23), protects “individual dignity and autonomy.” In re T.W., 551 So.2d 1186,
1193 (Fla. 1989) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted) (emphasis added).
The Alaska Supreme Court, the California Court of Appeal and the Florida
Supreme Court have all refused to recognize a privacy-based right to physicianassisted
suicide, even though the constitution of each State has been interpreted to
See Washington v 7 . Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 701 (1997); Rodriguez v. British
Columbia (Attorney General) [1993] 3 S.C.R. 519; R. v. United Kingdom, App.
No. 10083/82, 33 Eur. Comm’n H.R. Dec. & Rep. 270 (1983).
8 Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 851 (1992) (referring to the
“choices central to personal dignity and autonomy [that] are central to [the] liberty
protected by the Fourteenth Amendment”) (reaffirming right to choose childbirth
or abortion).
9 Rodriguez v. British Columbia (Attorney General), [1993] 3 S.C.R. 519,
542 (Can.) (“[r]espect for human dignity underlies many of the rights and
freedoms in the Charter”); R. v. Morgentaler, [1988] 1 S.C.R. 30, 164 (Can.)
(Wilson, J., concurring) (“[t]he Charter and the right to individual liberty
guaranteed under it are inextricably tied to the concept of human dignity”).
10 SW v. United Kingdom, 21 Eur. Ct. H.R. 363, 402 (1996) (identifying
“respect for dignity and human freedom” as the “very essence” of the Convention).
13
protect human dignity as a core constitutional value. The Supreme Court of the
United States, the Supreme Court of Canada and the European Court of Human
Rights have also rejected privacy-based challenges to laws prohibiting physicianassisted
suicide,7 even in the circumstances proposed by plaintiffs, despite their
recognition (in the same or other cases) of human dignity as a value protected by,
respectively, the United States Constitution,8 the Canadian Charter of Rights and
Freedoms,9 and the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and
Fundamental Freedoms.10 Washington v. Glucksberg, Rodriguez v. British
Columbia and R. v. United Kingdom are all persuasive precedents that the
constitutional value of human dignity does not require recognition of physicianNor,
for that matter, 11 has this Court in the few decisions to date in which it
has discussed the “dignity” language of art. II, § 4. State v. Herrick, 2004 MT
323, ¶ 35, 324 Mont. 76, ¶ 35, 101 P.3d 755, ¶ 35 (dignity of criminal defendant
was not violated by being forced to wear leg restraints at his trial where there was
no evidence that the jurors ever saw the restraints); Walker v. State, 2003 MT 134,
¶¶ 52-84, 316 Mont. 134, ¶¶ 52-84, 68 P.3d 872, ¶¶ 52-84 (behavior modification
program used in a prison setting violated both the dignity clause, art. II, § 4, and
the prohibition of cruel and unusual punishments, art. II, § 22); In re Mental
Health of K.G.F., 2001 MT 140, ¶¶ 45-60, 306 Mont. 1, ¶¶ 45-60, 29 P.3d 485, ¶¶
45-60 (dignity of persons subject to involuntary mental health commitment
requires effective assistance of counsel and appropriate due process); Armstrong,
¶ 72 (dictum); Oberg v. City of Billings, 207 Mont. 277, 280, 674 P.2d 494, 495
(1983) (right not to be subjected to a polygraph examination as a condition of
employment). None of these decisions rested solely on the “dignity” language of
art. II, § 4.
12 Whether the “individual dignity” language of art. II, § 4, provides
meaningful guidance for judicial enforcement was debated by Justices Nelson and
Rice in their concurring and dissenting opinions in Snetsinger v. Montana
University System, 2004 MT 390, 325 Mont. 148, 104 P.3d 445. Compare
Snetsinger, ¶¶ 71-79 (Nelson, J., specially concurring) (first sentence of art. II, § 4,
is enforceable independently of the two sentences guaranteeing equal protection
and prohibiting discrimination), with ¶¶ 157-58 (Rice, J., dissenting) (contra).
14
assisted suicide.
Neither the parties, in their trial briefs, nor the district court examined the
constitutional history of the individual dignity language of art. II, § 4.11 That
history, however, demonstrates that the first sentence of § 4 expresses a
constitutional principle (or value) that is given effect by the two sentences that
follow.12 In other words, “[t]he dignity of the human being” is secured by treating
him or her equally with others and by prohibiting discrimination. Properly
As is the “Right 13 to Individual Dignity” guarantee of the Louisiana
Constitution, LA. CONST. art. I, § 3 (West 2006), the operative clauses of which
guarantee equal protection and prohibit discrimination. See State v. Granger, 982
So.2d 779, 788-89 (La. 2008) (discussing standards of review under art. I, § 3).
14 Larry M. Elison and Fritz Snyder, THE MONTANA STATE CONSTITUTION
35 (Westport, Conn. 2001) (“[t]he language [of art. II, § 4] is unique to the extent
that it recognizes human dignity as a dimension of, or corollary to, the concept of
equal protection of the law”) (emphasis added); Tia Rikel Robbin, Untouched
Protection from Discrimination: Private Action in Montana’s Individual Dignity
Clause, 51 MONT. L. REV. 553, 559-62 (1990) (intent of framers of art. II, § 4, was
to eradicate discrimination).
15
understood, therefore, § 4 should be regarded as a general guarantee of equal
protection, combined with a prohibition of discrimination on specified grounds,13
as several commentators have noted.14
What ultimately became art. II, § 4, was proposed by Delegates Richard J.
Champoux, William A. Burkhardt and Marshall Murray. MONTANA
CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION 1971-1972 (hereinafter MCC), Vol. I, p. 161
(Delegate Proposal No. 61). Their proposal, slightly modified, was adopted by the
Bill of Rights Committee. MCC, Vol. II, pp. 620, 628. As modified, § 4 stated:
The dignity of the human being is inviolable. No person shall
be denied the equal protection of the law, nor be discriminated
against in the exercise of his civil or political rights on account of
race, color, sex, culture, social origin or condition, or political or
religious ideas, by any person, firm, corporation, or institution; or by
the state, its agencies or subdivisions.
Id.
16
The Bill of Rights Committee adopted § 4 “with the intent of providing a
Constitutional impetus for the eradication of public and private discrimination
based on race, color, sex, culture, social origin or condition, or political or
religious ideas.” MCC, Vol. II, p. 628. “The provision,” the Committee explained,
is aimed at prohibiting private as well as public discrimination in civil and
political rights.” Id. The Committee heard “[c]onsiderable testimony” on “the
need to include sex in any equal protection or freedom from discrimination
provisions.” Id. The word “culture” was added to the proposal “to cover groups
whose cultural base is distinct from mainstream Montana, especially the American
Indians.” Id. “Social origin or condition” was included “to cover discrimination
based on status of income and standard of living.” Id. Finally, the language
“political or religious ideas” was added “to prohibit public and private concerns
discriminating against persons because of their political or religious beliefs.” Id.
After noting that the wording of § 4 was derived “almost verbatim from Delegate
Proposal No. 61,” the Committee expressed the view that the proposed language
“incorporated all the features of all the Delegate Proposals . . . on the subjects of
equal protection of the laws and the freedom from discrimination.” Id.
It is apparent from the Bill of Rights Committee Report that “[t]he dignity
of the human being” recognized as “inviolable” in the first sentence of art. II, § 4,
As noted below, the second s 15 entence was later divided into two separate
sentences by the Committee on Style and Drafting.
16 There is nothing novel or even particularly unusual about a constitutional
provision expressing a principle that, in itself, does not create any judicially
enforceable rights. For example, it is clear from the convention debates that the
right “of pursuing life’s basic necessities,” art. II, § 3, is a “statement of principle”
that was not intended “to create a substantive right for all the necessities of life to
be provided by the public treasury.” MCC, Vol. V, pp. 1636 (remarks of Delegate
Monroe). See Butte Community Union v. Lewis, 219 Mont. 426, 430-31, 712 P.2d
1309, 1311-12 (1986) (citing debates).
17
was to be secured by the second sentence, as proposed,15 which guarantees every
person the equal protection of the law and prohibits discrimination against anyone
“in the exercise of his civil or political rights” on account of “race, color, sex,
culture, social origin or condition, or political or religious ideas.” Thus, the first
sentence of § 4 expresses a principle (or constitutional value) which was to be
given effect by the second sentence (as proposed).16 If a given statute does not
deny equal protection of the law and does not discriminate on any of grounds
identified in § 4, then the dignity of the person has not been violated. This is
confirmed by a review of the debate on art. II, § 4, in the Committee of the Whole.
In introducing § 4 of the Bill of Rights Committee Proposal, Delegate
Mansfield reiterated that the Committee had adopted this section “with the intent
of providing a constitutional impetus for the eradication of public and private
discrimination based on race, color, sex, culture, social origin or condition, or
18
political or religious ideas.” MCC, Vol. V, p. 1642 (remarks of Delegate
Mansfield). After Delegate Mansfield recited the Bill of Rights Committee
Comments on § 4, the Committee of the Whole considered and rejected an
amendment proposed by Delegate Habedank to strike the words “by any person,
firm, corporation or institution; or” from the second sentence, as proposed. Id.,
Vol. V, pp. 1642-46. In the course of the debate over the proposed amendment,
Wade Dahood, Chairman of the Bill of Rights Committee, stated that “[t]he intent
of Section 4 is simply to provide that every individual in the State of Montana, as
a citizen of this state, may pursue his inalienable rights without having any
shadows cast upon his dignity through unwarranted discrimination.” Id., Vol. V,
p. 1643 (emphasis added). The Committee of the Whole thereafter recommended
that the Convention adopt § 4. Id., Vol. V, p. 1646.
The Committee on Style and Drafting recommended revising § 4 of the
proposed Bill of Rights by splitting the second sentence into two sentences,
rephrasing the section and deleting unnecessary language. MCC, Vol. II, pp. 957,
962, 967, 969. The Committee of the Whole accepted these revisions, id., Vol.
VII, pp. 2477, 2501, 2630-31, 2921, which put § 4 into its current form. The
Convention thereafter adopted art. II, including § 4. Id., Vol. VII, pp.2933-34.
Given the Comments of the Bill of Rights Committee, as well as Chairman
17 That may also have represented the understanding of the voters who were
informed that art. II, § 4, was a “[n]ew provision prohibiting public and private
discrimination in civil and political rights.” Proposed 1972 Constitution for the
State of Montana, Official Text with Explanation, p. 6.
18 The prohibition of assisted suicide does not violate the equal protection
guarantee of the second sentence of § 4. See Decision & Order at 11-13; Vacco v.
Quill, 521 U.S. 793 (1997). The third sentence (prohibiting discrimination) is not
implicated. The Bill of Rights Committee rejected a proposal (Delegate Proposal
No. 103) that would have recognized the right of the “incurably ill” not to be “kept
alive” by “extraordinary means,” MCC, Vol. I, p. 223; Vol. II, p. 649, which
suggests that the Committee did not intend to create a right to assisted suicide.
19
Dahood’s statement that § 4 was intended to allow Montanans to pursue their
“inalienable rights” without having their dignity overshadowed by “unwarranted
discrimination,” the Convention would have understood that the operative
provisions of § 4 guaranteed equal protection and prohibited discrimination.17
Those provisions are the judicially enforceable means by which the end of
preserving human dignity is achieved.18
Article II, § 4, was derived from art. II, § 1, of the Puerto Rico Constitution.
MCC, Vol. V, p. 1642. Art. II, § 1, provides:
The dignity of the human being is inviolable. All men are
equal before the law. No discrimination shall be made on account of
race, color, sex, birth, social origin or condition, or political or
religious ideas. Both the laws and the system of public education
shall embody these principles of essential human equality.
P.R. CONST. ANN. art. II, § 1 (2008). The last sentence of this section expresses
See Juan M. Garcia-Passalacqua, P 19 UERTO RICAN CONSTITUTIONAL LAW
41 (1974) (concept of the dignity of the human being is “the moral basis for
democratic government,” and implies the “essential equality” of all people before
the law”).
20 “In our jurisdiction the concept of privacy of the human being has an
express constitutional origin.” People v. Duarte Mendoza, 9 P.R. Offic. Trans.
797, 802 n. 5 (1980), citing P.R. CONST. ANN. art. II, § 8 (2008), which provides:
“Every person has the right to the protection of law against abusive attacks on his
honor, reputation and private or family law.” P.R. CONST. Ann. art. II, § 8 (2008).
21 Contrary to the suggestion of some, see Matthew O. Clifford and Thomas
P. Huff, Some Thoughts on the Meaning and Scope of the Montana Constitution’s
“Dignity” Clause with Possible Applications, 61 MONT. L. REV. 301, 323-24
(2000), the Puerto Rico Supreme Court’s decision in Puerto Rico Urban Renewal
& Housing Corp. v. Pena Ubiles, 95 P.R.R. 301 (1967), was not based on the
“dignity” language of art. II, § 1, which was not even cited in the opinion, but
upon due process. Id. at 306. The same court’s decision in Figueroa Ferrer v.
Commonwealth, 7 P.R. Offic. Trans. 278 (1978), which recognized a right to nofault
divorce, was principally based on art. II, § 8, not art. II, § 1. Id. at 281-87.
20
the understanding of the drafters that § 1 sets forth “principles of essential human
equality.”19 Consistent with that understanding, and apart from privacy interests
separately protected by art. II, § 8,20 the case law interpreting § 1 has largely
involved claims of discrimination. See, e.g., Comm’n for Women’s Affairs ex rel.
A.I.A.R v. Secretary of Justice, 9 P.R. Offic. Trans. 954, 975 (1980) (striking down
rule of procedure requiring, in certain rape prosecutions, corroboration of the
victim’s testimony).21
Amicus concurs with Justice Rice’s understanding of the “individual
22 Justice Rice was addressing an alternative argument advanced by Justice
Nelson in support of the majority opinion. See Snetsinger, ¶¶ 71-79 (Nelson, J.,
specially concurring).
21
dignity” language of art. II, § 4:
Of course, dignity undergirds the Constitution and is part of the
philosophical foundation of our Constitution. We would desire that
all would be treated with dignity and work toward such end under the
law, but that is something far different than interpreting the law to
require all outcomes to be consistent with dignity–whatever that
would mean, and this is the problem. Elevating the dignity provision
to such a place would inevitably require that a judge’s subjective
feelings about how a person should be treated be enshrined in law,
and that without limits, because “human dignity may not be violated–
no exceptions.”
Snetsinger, ¶ 158 (Rice, J., dissenting) (quoting Nelson, J., specially concurring,
¶ 77).22
Neither the right of privacy guaranteed by art. II, § 10, nor the recognition
of individual dignity set forth in art. II, § 4, protects a right to physician-assisted
suicide. Accordingly, the judgment of the district court should be reversed.
22
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, amicus curiae respectfully requests that this
Honorable Court reverse the judgment of the district court.
Respectfully submitted,
__________________ ___________________
Lance Lovell Paul Benjamin Linton
Law Offices of Lance Lovell Special Counsel
175 N. 27th Street, Suite 1206 Thomas More Society
P.O. Box 1415 921 Keystone Avenue
Billings, Montana 59103-1415 Northbrook, Illinois 60062-3614
(406) 256-9300 (tel) (847) 291-3848 (tel)
(406) 256-9301 (fax) (847) 412-1594 (fax)
law@lancelovell.com PBLCONLAW@AOL.COM
Admitted Pro Hac Vice
Counsel of Record for the Amicus Of Counsel
__________________
Thomas Brejcha
President & Chief Counsel
Thomas More Society
29 S. La Salle Street, Suite 440
Chicago, Illinois 60603-1599
(312) 782-1680 (tel)
(312) 782-1887 (fax)
brejcha@AOL.COM
Admitted Pro Hac Vice
Of Counsel
Proof of Service
I hereby certify that on April 2, 2009, one copy of the Brief Amicus Curiae
of Physicians for Compassionate Care Education Foundation was served on the
following counsel of record, by depositing the same in the United States Post
Office, first class postage prepaid, Northbrook, Illinois:
Mark S. Connell Steve Bullock
Connell Law Firm Montana Attorney General
502 West Spruce Street Jennifer Anders
P.O. Box 9108 Anthony Johnstone
Missoula, Montana 59807-9108 Assistant Attorneys General
215 North Sanders
Kathryn L. Tucker P.O. Box 201401
c/o Compassion & Choices Helena, Montana 59620-1401
P.O. Box 6404
Portland, Oregon 97228-6404 Counsel for Defendants-Appellants
Counsel for Plaintiffs-Appellees
__________________________
Paul Benjamin Linton
Certificate of Compliance
Pursuant to Rule 11(4)(d) of the Montana Rules of Appellate Procedure, I
hereby certify that the Brief Amicus Curiae of Physicians for Compassionate Care
Education Foundation in Support of Defendants-Appellants is double-spaced,
proportionately spaced, using Times New Roman typeface and 14-point type, and,
according to the word count of the processing software used to prepare the brief
(Word Perfect 12.0), contains 5,000 words, exclusive of the cover, inside cover,
table of contents, table of authorities, proof of service, certificate of compliance
and the signature block.
__________________________
Paul Benjamin Linton

Posted by: Clem

May 13, 2009 11:49 AM

Archbishop Burke's Keynote address from National Catholic Prayer Breakfast

FULL TEXT: Archbishop Burke's Keynote Address from Friday's National Catholic Prayer Breakfast

WASHINGTON, D.C.
MAY 8, 2009
KEYNOTE ADDRESS
Introduction
1. I am deeply honored to give the Keynote Address at this annual gathering of Catholics to pray for our nation. I express my heartfelt esteem and gratitude to those who, each year, organize and support the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast.
2. The theme of this year's Breakfast is most fitting to the difficult time through which our nation is now passing. Before the fundamental and great challenges which we as a nation are facing, how better to express our patriotism than by celebrating the teachings of our Catholic faith. The most treasured gift which we as citizens of the United States of America can offer to our country is a faithful Catholic life. It is the gift which, even though it has often been misunderstood, has brought great strength to our nation, from the time of its founding. Today more than ever, our nation is in need of Catholics who know their faith deeply and express their faith, with integrity, by their daily living.
3. Although I no longer have my residence in our beloved nation, I am no less bound to practice the virtue of patriotism, taught and exemplified by Our Lord during His public ministry. It is Our Lord Who gives us, in the Church, the grace to practice patriotism as a fundamental expression of the bond of charity which we have, in Him, with our fellow citizens. From my earliest formation in the life of the faith, received at home from my parents and in the Catholic schools, it was clear to me that duty to one's nation, to one's fellow citizens, is integral to our life in Christ in the Church. In the Baltimore Catechism, the virtue of patriotism is joined with filial piety. These essentially connected virtues, in the words of the Catechism, dispose us to honor, love and respect our parents and our country (Revised Baltimore Catechism and Mass, No. 3, New York: Benziger Brothers, Inc., 1949, 1952, no. 135). Surely, the most fundamental expression of patriotism is daily prayer for our homeland, the United States of America, her citizens and her leaders. Our participation in the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast is, I trust, an extraordinary expression of the daily prayer which we all offer for our country, as good Catholics and, therefore, good citizens.
4. It pleases me that today's celebration included a presentation by Mother Shaun Vergauwen, Superior General of the Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist. I have known Mother Shaun's religious congregation for all the years of my priestly life. The consecrated life of the Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist is an inspired witness to the truths of our Catholic faith, especially what pertains to the Gospel of Life, and, therefore, also makes a strong contribution to the good of all citizens in our nation.

Growing Crisis in Our Nation
5. I come to you, this morning, with the deepest concern for our nation. I come to you, not as someone who stands outside of our nation but as a citizen who, with you as fellow citizens, takes responsibility for the state of our nation and, therefore, cannot remain indifferent and inactive about what most concerns the good of us all, especially those among us who are small, weak and defenseless.
6. Over the past several months, our nation has chosen a path which more completely denies any legal guarantee of the most fundamental human right, the right to life, to the innocent and defenseless unborn. Our nation, which had its beginning in the commitment to safeguard and promote the inalienable right to "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" for all, without boundary, is more and more setting arbitrary limits to her commitment (cf. The Declaration of Independence: Action of Second Continental Congress, 4 July 1776, in The Constitution of the United States with the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation, New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 2002, p. 81). Those in power now determine who will or will not be accorded the legal protection of the most fundamental right to life. First the legal protection of the right to life is denied to the unborn and, then, to those whose lives have become burdened by advanced years, special needs or serious illness, or whose lives are somehow judged to be unprofitable or unworthy.
7. What is more, those in power propose to force physicians and other healthcare professionals, in other words, those with a particular responsibility to protect and foster human life, to participate, contrary to what their conscience requires, in the destruction of unborn human lives, from the first or embryonic stage of development to the moment of birth. Our laws may soon force those who have dedicated themselves to the care of the sick and the promotion of good health to give up their noble life work, in order to be true to the most sacred dictate of their consciences. What is more, if our nation continues down the path it has taken, healthcare institutions operating in accord with the natural moral law, which teaches us that innocent human life is to be protected and fostered at all times and that it is always and everywhere evil to destroy an innocent human life, will be forced to close their doors.
8. At the same time, the fundamental society, that is, the family, upon which the life of our nation is founded and depends, is under attack by legislation which redefines marriage to include a relationship between two persons of the same sex and permits them to adopt children. In the same line, it is proposed to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act. At the root of the confusion and error about marriage is the contraceptive mentality - which would have us believe that the inherently procreative nature of the conjugal union can, in practice, be mechanically or chemically eliminated, while the marital act remains unitive. It cannot be so. With unparalleled arrogance, our nation is choosing to renounce its foundation upon the faithful, indissoluble, and inherently procreative love of a man and a woman in marriage, and, in violation of what nature itself teaches us, to replace it with a so-called marital relationship, according to the definition of those who exercise the greatest power in our society.
9. The path of violation of the most fundamental human rights and of the integrity of marriage and the family, which our nation is traveling, is not accidental. It is part of the program set forth by those whom we have freely chosen to lead our nation. The part of the program in question was not unknown to us; it was announced to us beforehand and a majority of our fellow citizens, including a majority of our fellow Catholics, chose the leadership which is now implementing it with determination. For example, I refer to our President's declared support of the Freedom of Choice Act, which would make illegal any legislation restricting procured abortion; his repeal of the Mexico City Policy, permitting U.S. funding of procured abortion in other nations, together with the grant of fifty million dollars to the United Nations Fund for Population Activities which, for example, supported the Republic of China's policy of one child per family by means of government-dictated sterilization and abortion; his proposal to rescind the regulations appended to the federal Conscience Clause, which assure that, not only physicians, but also all health-care workers may refuse to provide services, information or counsel to patients regarding medications and procedures which are contrary to their conscience; his removal of limitations on federal funding of embryonic-stem-cell research, involving the wholesale destruction of human life at the embryonic stage of development; and his choice of the members of his administration, who are remarkable for the number of major officials, including several Catholics, who favor the denial of the right to life to the unborn and the violation of the integrity of marriage and the family. These are only some examples of a consistent pattern of decisions by the leadership of our nation which is taking our nation down a path which denies the fundamental right to life to the innocent and defenseless unborn and violates the fundamental integrity of the marital union and the family.
10. As Catholics, we cannot fail to note, with the greatest sadness, the number of our fellow Catholics, elected or appointed by our President to public office, who cooperate fully in the advancement of a national agenda was is anti-life and anti-family. Most recently, the appointment of a Catholic as Secretary of Health and Human Services, who has openly and persistently cooperated with the industry of procured abortion in our nation, is necessarily a source of the deepest embarrassment to Catholics and a painful reminder of the most serious responsibility of Catholics to uphold the natural moral law, which is the irreplaceable foundation of just relationships among the citizens of our nation. It grieves me to say that the support of anti-life legislation by Catholics in public office is so common that those who are not Catholic have justifiably questioned whether the Church's teaching regarding the inviolable dignity of innocent human life is firm and unchanging. It gives the impression that the Church herself can change the law which God has written on every human heart from the beginning of time and has declared in the Fifth Commandment of the Decalogue: Thou shalt not kill.
11. As is clear, the anti-life and anti-family path down which our nation is being led has repercussions for many other peoples who rely upon the United States for aid or who are influenced by the international policies upon which our nation insists. The interest of so many nations in our recent presidential election is a clear sign of the world leadership which our national leadership exercises. What those who were so enthused about the strong message of change and hope in the United States, delivered during the last election campaign, are now discovering is a consistent implementation of policies and programs which confirm and advance the culture of death, which can only finally leave our world without the great hope, described by our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI in these words:
Let us say once again: we need the greater and lesser hopes that keep us going day by day. But these are not enough without the great hope, which must surpass everything else. This great hope can only be God, who encompasses the whole of reality and who can bestow upon us what we, by ourselves, cannot attain. The fact that it comes to us as a gift is actually part of hope. God is the foundation of hope: not any god, but the God who has a human face and who has loved us to the end, each one of us and humanity in its entirety. His Kingdom is not an imaginary hereafter, situated in a future that will never arrive; his Kingdom is present wherever he is loved and wherever his love reaches us.
His love alone gives us the possibility of soberly persevering day by day, without ceasing to be spurred on by hope, in a world which by its very nature is imperfect. His love is at the same time our guarantee of the existence of what we only vaguely sense and which nevertheless, in our deepest self, we await: a life that is truly life (Pope Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter Spe salvi, On Christian Hope, 30 November 2007, Acta Apostolicae Sedis no. 31).
The change which brings hope can only be the renewal of our nation in the divine love which respects the inviolable dignity of every human life, from the moment of its inception to the moment of natural death, and which creates and gives growth to new human life through the love of man and woman in marriage. Any hope which is incoherent with the great hope is truly illusory and can never bring forth justice and its fruit, peace, for our nation and world.

Addressing the Crisis
12. How can we as Catholics address effectively the critical situation of our nation in what pertains to the fundamental right to life and the integrity of the family? What does the virtue of patriotism, together with all of the virtues inspired by the Holy Spirit dwelling within us, require of us for the common good, for the good of the whole nation? First and foremost, it demands what we are doing this morning, that is, prayer, and the serious reflection which arises from our communion with God in prayer.
13. When Our Lord descended from the Mount of the Transfiguration, he found that his disciples had tried, without success, to help a boy afflicted by an unclean spirit. Our Lord then cast out the unclean spirit, prompting his disciples, when they were alone with Him, to ask why they had been unable to free the boy from his affliction. Our Lord responded with these words: This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer and fasting (Mk 9:29). Our Lord reminded them that the good which they wished to accomplish in the face of great evil could only be attained through prayer and fasting. In other words, evil cannot be overcome by our own forces alone, but by the grace of God which inspires and strengthens our thoughts and actions. It is Christ alone who has accomplished the victory over sin and its most evil fruit, eternal death, and it is Christ alone, in the Church, who continues to bring forth the fruits of His victory in our lives and in our world.
14. In the battle for the protection of the right to life and for the safeguarding of the integrity of marriage and the family in our nation, we are easily tempted to give way to discouragement. And it would be right to do so, if the outcome of the battle depended upon us alone. But it does not. Christ is with us always in the Church and, in a particular way, in the struggle to restore the respect for the right to life of all of our brothers and sisters, especially those who are helpless and who have the first title to our care, and to safeguard the integrity of marriage and the family. Christ Who is the Gospel of Life, encountered in prayer and through the Sacraments, will give us the strength to announce His word of life and to act upon His word of life, on behalf of all in our nation, especially those who depend upon us to care for them and protect their God-given rights.
15. If we are serious about our patriotic duty, then we must pray everyday for our leaders, especially our President, and our nation. We should also practice more fervently our fasting and abstinence for the conversion of our lives and the transformation of our society. If we want to act for the common good, the good of all, in our nation, then we will seek to convert our lives each day to Christ, especially through the Sacraments of Penance and the Holy Eucharist. Christ desires to announce the Gospel of Life and bring about its saving effects in our nation by the complete conversion of our lives to Him for the sake of all our brothers and sisters, without boundary, and for the sake of the preservation of the sanctuary of human life, marriage and the family.
16. At various times of great crisis in our nation and in the world, the Holy Father and our Bishops have called upon all Catholics to offer special prayers for the nation and for the world. I recall so well, from my youth, the Leonine Prayers offered at the conclusion of every Mass to address the growing threat of atheistic materialism in our world. Remember, too, how Pope Saint Pius V, in 1571, called upon the whole Church to pray, especially through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, when the Christian world was under attack by the Turks. After the victory of the Battle of Lepanto, on October 7, 1571, he established October 7th as an annual feast in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary and introduced the title of Mary Help of Christians into the Litany of Loreto. In the present crisis, praying daily the Rosary for our nation and invoking daily the intercession of Mary Help of Christians will be powerful forces for the victory of life and love.
17. At every Mass, we should offer special prayers for our nation and her leaders, in order that the culture of death may be overcome and a civilization of love may be steadfastly advanced. All Catholics throughout the nation should take part in Eucharistic adoration and in the praying of the Rosary for the restoration of the respect for human life and for the safeguarding of the integrity of the family. In our prayers, we should seek, above all, the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, under her title of the Immaculate Conception. Mary Immaculate is the patroness of our nation. In a most wonderful way, she appeared, on our continent, in what is present-day Mexico City, in 1531, as the Immaculate Mother of God, in order to manifest the all-merciful love of God toward His children of America. Through her example and intercession, the Native Americans and Europeans, who were on the brink of a most deadly conflict, were brought together to form one people under her maternal care, and the widespread practice of human sacrifice among the native people was brought to an end. In our time, in many parishes and dioceses there are campaigns of prayer for our nation and her leaders. May these powerful spiritual works continue and prosper, so that, through prayer and fasting, the grave evils of contraception, procured abortion, euthanasia, the experimentation on embryonic human life, and so-called same-sex marriage may be overcome in our nation.
18. Connected with our prayer must be the thoughtful and faithful reflection upon the Church's teaching on the respect for all human life and the integrity of the family. In our homes, in our Catholic schools and universities, in parish study groups, and in everyday conversations and discussions with our neighbors, we are called to give an uncompromising witness to the Gospel of Life. Parents, parish priests and institutions of Catholic education must be aware of the constant anti-life and anti-family messages which constantly bombard us and our young people. One has only to think, for example, of the corruption of the goodness of our youth by the multi-million dollar industry of pornography, especially on the Internet. Our reflection as individuals and groups must open our eyes to the gravity of the situation in our nation, lest we fail to take responsibility for the widespread attacks on human life and the family. Our reflection must help us all and, in a particular way, our young people to see the godless secularism and relativism which underly and justify our nation's anti-life and anti-family programs, policies and laws.
19. Our encounter with the world must be clear and uncompromising. Parents must reflect in their daily living the lifelong and rich fruit of the Gospel of Life, which they are called to teach to their children. Catholic educational institutions must devote themselves ever more strenuously to the study of the truths of the faith, addressing them to the moral challenges of our time. In a culture marked by widespread and grave confusion and error about the most fundamental teachings of the moral law, our Catholic schools and universities must be beacons of truth and right conduct. Clearly, the same is true of our Catholic charitable, missionary and healthcare institutions. There can be no place in them for teaching or activities which offend the moral law. Dialogue and respect for differences are not promoted by the compromise and even violation of the natural moral law. The profound granting of an honorary doctorate at Notre Dame University to our President who is as aggressively advancing an anti-life and anti-family agenda is a source of the gravest scandal. Catholic institutions cannot offer any platform to, let alone honor, those who teach and act publicly against the moral law. In a culture which embraces an agenda of death, Catholics and Catholic institutions are necessarily counter-cultural. If we as individuals or our Catholic institutions are not willing to accept the burdens and the suffering necessarily involved in calling our culture to reform, then we are not worthy of the name Catholic.

Catholics and Public Life
20. Our prayer and conversion of life, and the serious reflection upon and study of the truths of the moral life, both as individuals and in our Catholic institutions, require that we accept our responsibility as citizens to work tirelessly to change unjust programs, policies and laws. In a nation set so firmly on a path of violation of the most fundamental moral norms, Catholics and others who adhere to the natural moral law are pressured to think that their religious commitment to the moral law as the way of seeking the good of all is a merely confessional matter which cannot have any application in public life. Apparently, a number of Catholics in public life have been so convinced. How often do we hear Catholic legislators who vote in favor of anti-life and anti-family legislation claim that they are personally opposed to what the legislation protects and fosters, but that they as public officials may not allow religious beliefs to affect their support of such legislation? How often do we hear fellow Catholics supporting candidates for office, who are anti-life and anti-family, because of political-party loyalties or for reasons of other policies and programs supported by the candidate, which they deem to be good? How often is such thinking justified by the claim that religious faith is a purely private matter and has no place in the public forum? On the contrary, the common good depends upon the active engagement of religious faith in the public forum.
21. Addressing the role of the Church in the political order, Pope Benedict XVI reminds us:
- It must not be forgotten that, when Churches or ecclesial communities intervene in public debate, expressing reservations or recalling various principles, this does not constitute a form of intolerance or interference, since such interventions are aimed solely at enlightening consciences, enabling them to act freely and responsibly, according to the true demands of justice, even when this should conflict with situations of power and personal interest (Pope Benedict XVI, Ad Congressum a Populari Europae Faction provectum, Acta Apostolicae Sedis 98 [2006], 344)."
- In his Encyclical Letter Deus caritas est, our Holy Father reminded us of the great gift of our faith which enables reason to do its work more effectively and to see its proper object more clearly (Pope Benedict XVI, Encylical Letter Deus caritas est , On Christian Love, 25 December 2005, Acta Apostolicae Sedis 98 [2006], 239, no. 28). When the Church addresses her social teaching to issues of the common good, she has no intention of giving the Church power over the State or to impose on those who do not share the faith ways of thinking and modes of conduct proper to faith (Deus caritas est, no. 28). Her aim, which is our aim as patriotic Catholics, is simply to help purify reason and to contribute, here and now, to the acknowledgment and attainment of what is just (Deus caritas est, no. 28). In addressing the critical issues of our nation, the Church and we, as her faithful sons and daughters, intervene on the basis of reason and natural law, namely, on the basis of what is in accord with the nature of every human being (Deus caritas est, no. 28).
22. Our uncompromising commitment to protect the inviolable dignity of innocent human life and to safeguard the integrity of marriage and the family are not based on peculiar confessional beliefs or practices but on the natural moral law, written on every heart and, therefore, a fundamental part of the Church's moral teaching. At the same time, what is always and everywhere evil cannot be called good for the sake of accomplishing some other good end. All of us must be concerned about a wide range of goods which are important to the life of our nation, but the concern for those goods can never justify the betrayal of the fundamental goods of life itself and the family. We must take care to uproot from our moral thinking any form of relativism, consequentialism and proportionalism, which would lead us into the error of thinking that it is sometimes right to do what is always and everywhere evil.
23. An important part of our moral reflection must include a clear understanding of the principles regarding cooperation in evil, especially by the act of voting. Too often, in our time, our inability to accomplish all that we should for the sake of the defense of the right to life and of the protection of the integrity of the family is used to justify the direct choice of a political leader who espouses a position or positions in violation of the natural moral law. The Servant of God Pope John Paul II, in his Encyclical Letter Evangelium vitae, addresses at length the question of cooperation in evil which violates the dignity of innocent human life. He offers as an example the case of a legislator who has the possibility of voting for a law which would restrict the evil of procured abortion, even though it would not eradicate it completely. He concludes that the legislator could vote for the legislation, while his own opposition to procured abortion remains clear, for his vote does not in fact represent an illicit cooperation with an unjust law, but rather a legitimate and proper attempt to limit its evil aspects (Pope John Paul II, Encylical Letter Evangelium vitae , On the Good and Inviolability of Human Life, 25 March 1995, Acta Apostolicae Sedis 87 [1995], 487, no. 73). In an analogous manner, as voters, we are often faced with a choice among candidates who do not fully oppose unjust laws. In such a case, we must choose the candidate who will most limit the evil effects of unjust laws. But, there is no element of the common good, no morally good practice, which a candidate may promote and to which a voter may be dedicated, which could justify voting for a candidate who also endorses and supports the deliberate killing of the unborn, euthanasia or the recognition of a same-sex relationship as a legal marriage. The respect for the inviolable dignity of innocent human life and for the integrity of marriage and the family are so fundamental to the common good that they cannot be subordinated to any other cause, no matter how good it may be.
24. In the present situation of our nation, a serious question has arisen about the moral obligation of Catholics to work for the overturning of the Supreme Court decisions in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton. There are those who would tell us that such work is futile and, therefore, is to be abandoned, so that we can devote ourselves to help prevent individuals from choosing abortion. As Catholics, we can never cease to work for the correction of gravely unjust laws. Law is a fundamental expression of our culture and implicitly teaches citizens what is morally acceptable. Our efforts to assist those who are tempted to do what is always and everywhere wrong or are suffering from the effects of having committed a gravely immoral act, which are essential expressions of the charity which unites us as citizens of the nation, ultimately make little sense, if we remain idle regarding unjust laws and decisions of the courts regarding the same intrinsic evils. We are never justified in abandoning the work of changing legislation and of reversing decisions of the courts which are anti-life and anti-family.
Conclusion
25. As we gather this morning to pray for our nation, let us draw courage and strength from the glorious pierced Heart of Our Lord Jesus. Let us not give way to discouragement in our exercise of patriotism but rather be confident of the essential contribution which our Catholic faith makes to the life of our nation.
26. May the courage and strength which comes to us from the Sacred Heart of Jesus enlighten our minds to see more clearly the gravity of the situation of our nation and inflame our hearts to do our part to transform the life of our nation, in accord with the natural moral law, that is, with what is just and serves the good of all. Let us draw courage and strength from the Sacred Heart of Jesus through prayer and the Sacraments, especially the Sacraments of Penance and the Holy Eucharist. May the courage and strength of Christ guide our reflection on the state of our nation and lead us to that just action, taught to us by our faith, which serves the good of all.
27. Invoking the intercession of Mary Immaculate, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mother of America, let us pray today and everyday that we as Catholics, true to our faith and, therefore, patriotically devoted to our nation, may promote respect for all human life, safeguard the sanctity of marriage and the family, and, thereby, foster the good of all in the nation and in the world.
Thank you. God bless you.
(Most Rev.) Raymond L. Burke
Archbishop Emeritus of Saint Louis
Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura
God bless you.
(Most Rev.) Raymond L. Burke
Archbishop Emeritus of Saint Louis
Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura

Posted by: Clem

April 29, 2009 10:36 AM

Washington Insider...Richard M. Doerflinger NCBC

WASHINGTON INSIDER
Spring 2009

Richard M. Doerflinger
Associate Director
Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
Washington, D.C.

The November 2008 elections brought new challenges for those working to ensure that public policy in the United States respects the inherent dignity of each human life. After eight years of a president who generally championed the pro-life position on bioethics issues such as stem cell research and human cloning, as well as on abortion, voters elected a new president with a history of holding diametrically opposed views on these matters. Besides winning the White House, Democrats also strengthened their hold on Congress, with Democratic victories usually (though not always) translating into reduced support for pro-life initiatives.

Objectively it seems clear that the Republican party’s official pro-life position on these issues was not responsible for the party’s electoral losses. As in past elections, a pro-life position showed itself to be a political asset for candidates.(1) The pro-life movement also suffered somewhat less severe losses than the Republican party did in Congress, as some incoming Democrats hold a pro-life position and some departing Republicans did not. However, this asset was overpowered in the elections by President Bush’s waning popularity and by growing fear of an economic collapse, blamed (rightly or wrongly) on the party holding the White House. In the end, pro-life support on issues such as federal abortion funding was reduced by about sixteen votes in the House of Representatives and at least six in the Senate; support on bioethics issues such as embryonic stem cell research and human cloning is probably reduced to a similar degree.

The result is that not only pro-life policies established during the Bush administration over the last eight years, but even long-standing policies enacted during previous administrations, including the 1995 ban on federal funding of research in which human embryos are created or destroyed, may be at risk.
Ironically, the increased political clout for those favoring destructive human embryo research comes at a time when the scientific and medical justification for pursuing such research is weaker than ever.
Underscoring the growing divide between Catholic moral principles and the dominant political direction in Washington on these issues, the Holy See released a new instruction on bioethics in December 2008 that reaffirmed and elaborated the Catholic Church’s objections to various misuses of biotechnology to demean human dignity, including unethical practices that are about to receive increased support and funding from the federal government.

Embryonic Stem Cell Research

Some pro-life policies of recent years are the result of executive action, and have survived because of President Bush’s pledge to veto any law reversing them. These could be eliminated by President Obama on his own authority once he takes office on January 20. One example is President Ronald Reagan’s Mexico City policy of 1984, upheld by the first President Bush but rescinded by President Clinton in 1993, then reinstated by the second President Bush in 2001 and still in force. This policy prevents U.S. population-assistance funds from subsidizing organizations that perform and promote abortion as a family planning method abroad.

Equally vulnerable is the embryonic stem cell policy established by the second President Bush on August 9, 2001.(2) This prevents federal funding of research using human embryonic stem cells, if the embryos were destroyed for their stem cells after the date the policy was established. The stated intent of the policy was to support some basic research on the capabilities of human embryonic stem cells, without creating a financial incentive for researchers to continue destroying embryos for such research.

This policy has been opposed by a majority of both House and Senate for years. In 2007, a Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act (S. 5 of the 110th Congress) to reverse the Bush policy was approved by the Senate 63 to 34, and by the House 247 to 176, but was vetoed by President Bush and did not become law. Given a president willing to sign the bill, such legislation has ample votes for passage (including more than the sixty votes needed in the Senate to invoke cloture and end any filibuster). President Obama can also end the Bush policy by his own executive order; in that case legislation would not be necessary, but may still be pursued to define additional guidelines for the research, allocate funding levels for it, and make the new policy more permanent.

Besides the question of executive versus legislative action, there is a more substantive question: If the Bush policy will no longer exist, what will replace it?

If an executive order simply nullified the Bush policy and did nothing more, human embryos from any source could be destroyed for federally funded research, subject only to the most general standards or guidelines deemed applicable by the National Institutes of Health. This could provide a broadly unregulated mandate for research using cells from newly destroyed embryos, as the NIH has never actually funded such research and no specific regulations for it are now in effect.

A different approach has been recommended by the Center for American Progress, a liberal organization with close ties to the Obama transition team. Jonathan Moreno, a senior fellow at the center who directs its bioethics project, was named in November as coordinator of bioethics efforts for the president-elect’s team.(3) In early December, the center released policy recommendations for the new administration on embryonic stem cell research, authored by another of the center’s senior fellows, Rick Weiss (former science writer for the Washington Post).(4)

Weiss essentially recommends returning to the kinds of regulations that the Clinton administration approved in 2000 but never implemented to the point of issuing grants;(5) for example, the cells must be derived only from embryos produced for reproduction that are now considered “in excess of medical need” and slated for destruction; parents must give written informed consent; no financial inducements may be offered to donors; and the policy should make it clear that federal funds will not be directly used to create, harm or destroy human embryos, in accord with the Dickey amendment that Congress has approved as part of the Labor/HHS appropriations bill every year since 1995.

Some of these parameters are also included in the chief legislative proposal for reversing President Bush’s policy, the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act (H.R. 7141) sponsored in the 110th Congress by Reps. Diana DeGette (D-CO) and Mike Castle (R-DE). However, their legislation does not mention the Dickey amendment or explicitly reaffirm its policy against using federal funds to create or destroy embryos.
Others may want a broader policy and a more radical change of direction. For example, Professor Alta Charo of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, a member of the NIH Human Embryo Research Panel that first recommended federal funding of destructive human embryo research in 1994, has for many years advocated funding research that requires specially creating embryos solely for research purposes; she was named to the Obama transition team in November to work on health care policy.(6)

Human Cloning

It is also unclear whether the new Congress may act on the issue of human cloning. Due to the shift in congressional votes, a genuine ban on human cloning for any purpose seems like a more distant goal than ever. The question is whether a “clone-and-kill” proposal—a bill to allow unlimited cloning of human embryos for research, while forbidding placing such an embryo in a womb to allow its survival—may move forward.

In the 110th Congress a proposal of the latter kind, H.R. 2560, sponsored by Rep. DeGette, was defeated in the House by a vote of 204 to 213. The 111th Congress might have the votes to pass such a bill. However, such measures have been put forward in the past chiefly to head off genuine bans on the use of the cloning procedure to produce human embryos. If the prospect of a genuine ban has diminished, biotechnology companies and researchers may lose their enthusiasm for the fake ban. For that matter, in recent years some researchers and organizations have abandoned any pretense of having a principled stand against so-called reproductive cloning, and have said there may be legitimate uses for bringing cloned humans to live birth.(7) These advocates may think their goals are best served by passing no legislation, leaving in place the legal vacuum that now exists in the great majority of states on human cloning.

Science versus Politics

This political shift toward research relying on the destruction of developing human life coincides with a scientific shift in the opposite direction, as researchers increasingly turn to stem cells obtained in morally unobjectionable ways.

The most startling recent breakthrough in this field is the successful reprogramming of ordinary adult human cells into the equivalents of embryonic stem cells, called induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells. Science, the journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, has hailed this development as the “breakthrough of the year”—the most significant breakthrough of 2008 not only in stem cell research, but in all of science.(8) The three researchers most closely associated with the development of iPS cells also received the prestigious Massry Prize for 2008, an award often seen as a prelude to the Nobel Prize.(9)

The ability to reprogram adult human cells into “pluripotent” stem cells was first announced by Dr. Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto and Dr. James Thomson of University of Wisconsin late in 2007. However, in the past year numerous research teams have confirmed their result, and found effective ways to produce these cells without using the retroviruses and genes that raise the most serious concerns about cancer formation. Perhaps most notably, researchers have already begun producing “patient-specific” iPS cells from patients known to have various serious illnesses, to better study how these illnesses arise and might be treated.(10) The drive to generate pluripotent stem cells that are genetically matched to particular patients has been the chief justification offered for trying to produce human embryos by cloning—an effort that has been plagued for a decade by false promises, abject failures, and even fraud. Now iPS cells are quietly achieving what cloning researchers have only dreamed of being able to do. Accordingly, embryonic stem cell researchers are either incorporating iPS cells into their ongoing research or switching over to it completely.(11)

Meanwhile, stem cells from adult tissues and umbilical cord blood continue their steady progress in addressing a growing number of human illnesses and disabilities. In December 2008, for example, Spanish researchers announced that they had managed to grow a new working trachea for a young woman by “seeding” the woman’s own adult stem cells onto a matrix of connective tissue obtained from a donor.(12)

Public enthusiasts for embryonic stem cell research have responded to these breakthroughs in the three usual ways: simply ignoring or downplaying them; insisting (without evidence) that stem cells obtained by destroying embryos will achieve the same things and more, if only the floodgates of unlimited federal funding are opened; and even hijacking the recent advances by pretending that breakthroughs using iPS or adult cells were actually achieved using embryonic stem cells.

Rep. DeGette, for example, authored an opinion piece in the Denver Post urging President-elect Obama to overturn President Bush’s restrictions on embryonic stem cell research—and citing the Spanish advance in rebuilding a woman’s trachea as an example of the kind of research this will allow the United States to pursue. The fact that the Spanish study was done entirely with adult stem cells, which President Bush has funded and championed, was lost on her.(13)

Other advocates, such as Jonathan Moreno and George Daley, grudgingly acknowledge that progress has been made with iPS and adult cells, but maintain that embryonic stem cells remain the “gold standard” in this field.(14) While this slogan is tossed out as though its meaning were self-evident, what it seems to mean is simply that cells obtained by destroying embryos were developed first so everything else must be measured against them. It cannot mean that such research has provided treatments or other scientific breakthroughs that other cell sources have yet to match, for the opposite is the case. As noted above, iPS cells are far ahead in producing human patient-specific cells; earlier they showed they could treat a blood disease in mice that researchers had tried in vain to reverse with embryonic stem cells obtained by cloning.(15) Stem cells from adult tissue and cord blood are clearly the gold standard for human treatments, and are likely to remain so for a long time to come.

The most recent breakthrough study on embryonic stem cells confirms that they are especially good at one thing: unpredictable tumor formation. Mickie Bhatia and colleagues at McMaster University found that in embryonic stem cells “the very qualities researchers use to pick out a robust cell line may in fact be bestowed by precancerous transformations.” Bhatia says, “Current measurements are not capable of distinguishing the difference between great stem cells and cancer stem cells in vitro.” Martin Pera, a stem cell researcher at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, adds that finding ways to detect the abnormal cells in an embryonic stem cell culture is one of the “major challenges” in the field: “Ultimately it may be difficult or impossible to rule out with certainty that a given culture is totally free of abnormal cells.”(16) Embryonic stem cells may be the “gold standard” for causing cancer.

This field is most likely about to suffer from a far more serious divorce between politics and science than before, with politics driving the nation’s attention and resources toward the research that is most morally objectionable as well as least likely to provide a safe treatment for patients.

The War on Conscience

One of the last regulatory actions of the Bush administration in December 2008 was to issue a final rule on the protection of conscience rights in health care, especially in the context of abortion.(17) This legal clarification is both important and long overdue, as one of the three federal statutes it implements and enforces was enacted thirty-six years ago, but regulations have never been issued to help implement it.(18)

The new rule clarifies the scope of key terms in the underlying statutes. For example, it explains that protection against forced “assistance” in performing abortions and sterilizations encompasses protection against being forced to provide referrals. It requires institutions receiving health care funds from the Department of Health and Human Services to certify that they will comply with its nondiscrimination policy, and it provides a mechanism for health professionals to report violations of their conscience rights by contacting the HHS Office of Civil Rights.

It is also important to note what the final regulation does not do. It does not redefine the legal term “abortion” to include the potential anti-implantation effect of some drugs marketed as contraceptives, though an early draft leaked to the New York Times in July had proposed this as an option.(19) It does not generally protect against discrimination by private entities, as the laws in question chiefly apply to discrimination practiced by government entities themselves or in the course of a federally funded project. It does not reach beyond the scope of the underlying statutes to cover procedures other than abortion, though it does cover such other procedures when that is explicitly called for in certain sections of the thirty-six-year-old statute (42 USC §300a-7). And it does not show a bias toward protecting only pro-life health professionals, as several provisions of this same law forbid discrimination against physicians and nurses as well as students and trainees in the health professions because they are willing or unwilling to perform abortions and sterilizations (42 USC §300a7 [c] and [e]).

The regulation also has implications for the ability of scientists who respect early human life to survive in their chosen research fields, in what may be a new age of unethical embryo research. The oldest law implemented by the rule protects researchers in federally funded programs from being forced to participate in a “research activity” to which they have a moral or religious objection (42 USC §300a-7 [c][2] and [d]).
In short, this is a well-crafted, modest, responsible, and long overdue regulation that respects the freedoms of all. Naturally, it has been indignantly condemned as an unwarranted and unacceptable proposal by pro-abortion groups, which in this context cannot seriously be called “pro-choice.” They have urged President Obama to suspend the final rule by executive action as soon as he takes office. Any action to do so could send a signal that pro-life Americans are not welcome in the U.S. health care system under this administration. It would mark the end of any expectations that on this particular issue, the new president intends to reach across ideological lines to represent all the people.
As this article goes to press, Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion ­organizations as well as the attorneys general of seven states have filed suits urging a federal judge to enjoin the conscience regulation as an unwarranted expansion of the laws the regulation enforces. Some plaintiffs raise constitutional issues as well, including the bizarre charge that this regulation honoring everyone’s freedom of religion is an unconstitutional “establishment of religion.” Even without action by the President or Congress, the regulation may be enjoined until federal courts resolve these suits.

New Vatican Document:
A Strong Contrast with Expected U.S. Policies

As Americans were preparing for a new president and Congress in late 2008, the most significant front-page news on bioethics in many newspapers was the issuance of a new Vatican document on contested bioethics issues. The instruction Dignitas personae (The Dignity of a Person) was publicly released by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on December 12, 2008, the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.(20)

Analyses of the document’s principles and conclusions, and its significance as a teaching document, will be available elsewhere. This brief account will only note specific conclusions that relate directly to current public policy debates:

The document strongly reaffirms the Catholic Church’s rejection of in vitro fertilization and human cloning, while praising efforts to cure infertility by assisting a husband and wife in giving rise to a new human being through their marital act. From an ethical viewpoint, so-called therapeutic cloning (cloning embryos for research that will destroy them) is judged as “even more serious” than “reproductive” cloning (cloning embryos to produce a liveborn child), because it involves deliberately destroying one human being for the sake of benefit to others. Many members of Congress, of course, assume that compared to cloning for reproductive purposes, cloning for purposes of stem cell research raises a less serious moral issue or none at all.

Also reaffirmed is the Church’s opposition to any stem cell research that involves destroying human life at any stage, and its support for morally sound research using stem cells obtained harmlessly from adult tissues, umbilical cord blood, and amniotic fluid. The new iPS technique, which reprograms adult cells directly into very versatile stem cells, is not specifically cited but presumably falls into this latter category.

A caution is raised here about efforts to generate “products” that would not be “true” human embryos but may provide embryonic stem cells—generated, for example, by altering the human cloning technique so its product would lack the basic potential to function as an integrated organism.(21) The document does not reject these techniques outright, but reaffirms that it would be morally unacceptable to apply them to human cells unless or until one is certain that a human embryo will not be created and destroyed. In 2006, legislation to fund the exploration of such alternative techniques was unanimously approved by the Senate, but blocked in the House by supporters of destructive embryonic stem cell research.(22) President Bush later issued an executive order allowing use of federal funds to explore such alternatives and use stem cells derived from them, as long as they “clearly” meet the criterion that they are “derived without creating a human embryo for research purposes or destroying, discarding, or subjecting to harm a human embryo or fetus.”(23) As such his policy seems to comply with the Vatican’s parameters. Since that order was issued, however, interest in alternative ways to derive “pluripotent” stem cells has largely shifted to the morally noncontroversial breakthrough of adult cell reprogramming, exploration of which the executive order also encouraged.

Singled out for condemnation is the effort to produce human–animal “hybrid” embryos. The main form of such research being pursued at present, particularly in Great Britain, is the effort to use animal eggs for human “therapeutic cloning” experiments, to avoid the need to harvest huge numbers of women’s eggs for such experiments at great risk to women. The instruction raises a specific objection to such experiments, in addition to the general objection to destructive human embryo research and a concern about unknown risks to human patients who may receive such “hybrid” cells: “From the ethical standpoint, such procedures represent an offense against the dignity of human beings on account of the admixture of human and animal genetic elements capable of disrupting the specific identity of man.” A federal ban on creating human–animal hybrid embryos was introduced in the last Congress and will be reintroduced, with the support of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and others; it may be one of the few morally responsible legislative efforts in the bioethics field that have a chance of receiving serious consideration in the new Congress.(24)

The document also warns against too readily engaging in research that relies on cell lines derived in morally unacceptable ways (e.g., fetal cell lines from abortions, stem cells from destroyed embryos). It is not enough, says the Holy See, to cite a “criterion of independence,” claiming that such use poses no moral problem if one was not involved in actually destroying these lives or creating the cell lines. Rather, ethically responsible researchers have an obligation to distance themselves from such gravely unjust situations and “affirm with clarity the value of human life.” While some material cooperation in evil may be justified for serious reasons—as when a parent uses a vaccine derived using fetal tissue from abortion, because no other means is available for protecting children’s health—the document calls on pro-life researchers not to condone or casually accept any future fruits from current research that denigrates human life.

A passage in the instruction that surprised many is its largely negative judgment regarding “adoption” of frozen embryos. The question whether a Catholic couple may adopt or “rescue” a frozen embryo abandoned by his or her own parents, to give that human being a chance to grow and survive, has been vigorously debated in this journal and other Catholic publications. The document does not formally state that such efforts are intrinsically immoral, but cites problems of two kinds: moral considerations regarding the dignity of marriage and procreation, of the same kind that lead the Church to reject embryo donation to address a couple’s infertility; and more circumstantial problems such as the need to coordinate with couples and clinics involved in IVF to engage in this kind of activity, raising issues of cooperation with evil and scandal. The instruction emphasizes that because there seems to be no morally acceptable solution to the plight of these frozen embryos, it is more urgent than ever to stop the production and freezing of embryos in laboratories in the first place. No IVF clinic should continue conducting “business as usual” in this regard on the assumption that Catholic couples will provide a convenient escape valve for any so-called extra embryos that need a new home. To illustrate one practical problem in this field: For several years the Labor/HHS appropriations bill has included a line item providing funds to make embryo adoption more available in the United States; but this item was inserted by Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA), a strong supporter of destructive embryonic stem cell research, to silence criticism that he and his allies want to destroy human embryos who might otherwise have been adopted and been born alive. From Senator Specter’s viewpoint, if the government allows the option of embryo adoption, it is more justified than ever at classifying the embryos that remain as unwanted “excess” and destroying them for stem cells.

The document also warns against drugs and devices that are marketed as contraceptive but are better described as “interceptive,” because they can act by interfering with the implantation and hence survival of the newly fertilized embryo in the womb. The “morning-after” pill and IUD are cited in this regard, though without reference to particular drug formulations, and the document admits that the scientific evidence on the mode of action of such drugs continues to be debated. The document’s central moral judgment on this point is that those who intentionally prescribe or use such drugs and devices in order to disrupt implantation, and thereby prevent the survival of any new human being who may have been conceived, are guilty of the sin of abortion. Unambiguous evidence that commonly used “contraceptive” drugs act as early abortifacients would certainly sharpen the divide between our secular health care system and Catholic morality, and expand the scope of potential threats to Catholic consciences in the health care field. The scientific debate on the evidence will continue, with this document underscoring its serious moral implications.
Conclusion

In short, the effort to guide progress in biotechnology and medical research in life-affirming and ethically responsible ways will face more serious challenges and obstacles than ever in Washington in the next few years. The irony is that some policy makers’ campaign to place “science” before “politics” is really a drive to ignore sound ethical principles, which finds itself devoted to some increasingly obsolete scientific assumptions as to what avenues of research are most promising. The obligation of Catholics to speak against this trend, in defense of human dignity as well as the life and health of human patients, will be correspondingly all the more urgent.

Richard M. Doerflinger

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Notes

1. See D. O’Steen, “Massive Pro-Life Effort Aids Candidates,” National Right to life News 35.11 (November–December 2008), http://www.nrlc.org/news/2008/NRL11/Effort.html.

2. “Federal Policy,” National Institutes of Health Stem Cell Information Web site, last modified October 6, 2006, http://stemcells.nih.gov/policy/.

3. See J. Reichard, “HHS Transition Team Leaders Named,” CQ Healthbeat News, ­November 14, 2008, http://www.commonwealthfund.org/healthpolicyweek/healthpolicyweek
_show.htm?doc_id=728453#doc728459. For an account of a conference at the Center for American Progress, demonstrating its very political and seemingly amoral approach to public debates in bioethics, see R. Doerflinger, “Washington Insider,” National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 6.3 (Autumn 2006): 418–420.

4. R. Weiss, “A Call for a New Federal Embryonic Stem Cell Research Agenda,” Center for American Progress Web site, December 4, 2008, http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/12/stem_cells.html.

5. National Institutes of Health, “National Institutes of Health Guidelines for Research Using Human Pluripotent Stem Cells,” Federal Register 65.166 (August 25, 2000): 51976–51981; corrections at Federal Register 65.225 (November 21, 2000): 69951.

6. J. Feld, “UW Professor Named to Obama’s Transition Team,” Daily Cardinal, November 19, 2008, http://www.dailycardinal.com/article/21414.

7. See W. Smith, “Ian Wilmut: Human Cloner,” Weekly Standard, February 16, 2005, http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/248cqsgl.asp. The Ethics Committee of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, an active member of the political coalition promoting embryonic stem cell research and the cloning of human embryos for research (Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research), stated that there is no “clear consensus” on “a compelling need” to prohibit reproductive cloning. Ethics Committee of the ASRM, “Human Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (Cloning),” Fertility and Sterility 74.5 (November 2000): 875, http://www.asrm.org/Media/Ethics/cloning.pdf.

8. See G. Vogel, “Breakthrough of the Year,” Science 322.5909 (December 19, 2008): 1766–1767.

9. University of Wisconsin–Madison News Release, “James Thomson Receives 2008 Massry Prize Honoring Stem Cell Researchers,” news release, December 18, 2008, http://www.news.wisc.edu/16090. The other recipients were Dr. Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University, who first developed the iPS technique, and Dr. Rudolf Jaenisch of MIT, who further refined the technique and used it to reverse a blood disease in animals.

10. D. Wahlberg, “University of Wisconsin–Madison Stem-Cell Team Replicates Disease in Lab Dish,” Wisconsin State Journal, December 22, 2008, http://www.madison.com/wsj/topstories/324873.

11. For example, while the British Parliament has agreed to allow researchers to use animal eggs to produce “hybrid” cloned human embryos for stem cell research, funding agencies are largely ignoring this avenue and are funding iPS research instead. Harry Moore, head of reproductive biology at Sheffield University, says, “What has happened is the field has moved on. You could argue that iPS cells are a more important area than hybrids now.” Speaking as chief executive of Great Britain’s Medical Research Council, which had pressed for government approval of the “hybrid” research, Sir Leszek Borysiewicz explains and defends this trend: “Fighting for the right to carry out such research does not mean that it should get priority over other applications which score higher and hold more promise” (emphasis added). I. Sample, “Rival Stem Cell Technique Takes the Heat out of Hybrid Embryo Debate,” Guardian, ­January 13, 2009, http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/jan/13/hybrid-embryos-stem-cells.

12. P. Macchiarini et al., “Clinical Transplantation of a Tissue-Engineered Airway,” Lancet 372.9655 (December 13, 2008): 2023–2030.

13. D. DeGette, “Restoring Stem Cell Research,” Denver Post, December 31, 2008, http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_11338837. In fact, DeGette’s article says wrongly that it was an esophagus that was rebuilt. In her zeal to promote a federal policy that she says will be “based on science, not politics,” she ignores scientific distinctions between the digestive and respiratory systems as well as between adult and embryonic stem cells.

14. For “gold standard” quotes, see David Masci, “The Case for Embryonic Stem Cell Research: An Interview with Jonathan Moreno,” Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, July 17, 2008, http://pewforum.org/events/?EventID=193; and C. Hulse, “Democrats Debate Methods to End Stem Cell Ban,” New York Times, January 2, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/03/washington/03stem.html.

15. For details and citations, see R. Doerflinger, “Washington Insider,” National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 8.1 (Spring 2008): 24.

16. Bhatia and Pera are quoted in M. Baker, “Robust Embryonic Stem Cells May Harbor Precancerous Surprises,” Niche, January 5, 2009, http://blogs.nature.com/reports/theniche/2009/01/robust_embryonic_stem_cells_ma.html. For the Bhatia study, see T. E. Werbowetski-Ogilvie et al., “Characterization of Human Embryonic Stem Cells with
Features of Neoplastic Progression,” letter, Nature Biotechnology 27.1 (January 2009): 91–97.

17. “Ensuring That Department of Health and Human Services Funds Do Not Support Coercive or Discriminatory Policies or Practices in Violation of Federal Law,” Final Rule, Federal Register 73.245 (December 19, 2008): 78071–78101.

18. For the full text of the three statutes, see USCCB Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities, “Federal Laws Protecting Conscience Rights Implemented through HHS Rule of December 18, 2008,” December 2008, http://www.usccb.org/prolife/Dec08fedconslaws.pdf. The oldest of these is 42 USC §300a-7, the [Frank] Church amendment, which was first enacted in 1973.

19. R. Pear, “Abortion Proposal Sets Conditions on Aid,” New York Times, July 15, 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/washington/15rule.html.

20. Rob Stein, “Lawsuits Filed over Rule That Lets Health Workers Deny Care,” ­Washington Post, January 16, 2009, A4,

20. For the instruction and supportive materials, see the USCCB Web site, http://www.usccb.org/comm/Dignitaspersonae/.

21. The techniques cited by the document are parthenogenesis, altered nuclear transfer (ANT), and oocyte assisted reprogramming (OAR). The latter two have generated considerable interest and debate in Catholic circles, not least in this journal.

22. Alternative Pluripotent Stem Cell Therapies Enhancement Act, S. 2754, 109th Cong., 2nd sess. (May 5, 2006).

23. “Expanding Approved Stem Cell Lines in Ethically Responsible Ways,” Executive Order 13435 of June 20, 2007, Federal Register 72.120 (June 22, 2007): 34591–34593.

24. See “Human-Animal Hybrid Prohibition Act of 2008,” 110th Cong., S. 2358 (introduced by Senator Sam Brownback, November 15, 2007) and H.R. 5910 (introduced by Rep. Chris Smith, April 24, 2008).

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Posted by: Clem

April 4, 2009 01:27 PM

Pope Benedict addresses concerns to Rt Honourable Gordon BRown

Key Element of the Crisis Is a Deficit of Ethics
t | t | t | tby Pope Benedict XVI

His Excellency
The Right Honourable Gordon Brown
Prime Minister

Dear Prime Minister,

During your recent visit to the Vatican, you kindly briefed me on the Summit taking place in London from 2 to 3 April 2009 with the participation of representatives from the world’s twenty largest economies. As you explained, the aim of this meeting is to coordinate, with urgency, measures necessary to stabilize financial markets and to enable companies and families to weather this period of deep recession, as well as to restore sustainable growth in the world economy and to reform and substantially strengthen systems of global governance, in order to ensure that such a crisis is not repeated in the future.

It is my intention with this letter to express to you and to the Heads of State and Heads of Government participating in the Summit the Catholic Church’s appreciation, as well as my own, for the meeting’s noble objectives. Such objectives arise from the conviction, shared by all the participating Governments and international organizations, that the way out of the current global crisis can only be reached together, avoiding solutions marked by any nationalistic selfishness or protectionism.

I am writing this message having just returned from Africa, where I had the opportunity to see at first hand the reality of severe poverty and marginalization, which the crisis risks aggravating dramatically. I was also able to witness the extraordinary human resources with which that Continent is blessed and which can be offered to the whole world.

The London Summit, just like the one in Washington in 2008, for practical and pressing reasons is limited to the convocation of those States which represent 90% of global GNP and 80% of world trade. In this framework, sub-Saharan Africa is represented by just one State and some regional organizations. This situation must prompt a profound reflection among the Summit participants, since those whose voice has least force in the political scene are precisely the ones who suffer most from the harmful effects of a crisis for which they do not bear responsibility. Furthermore, in the long run, it is they who have the most potential to contribute to the progress of everyone.

It is necessary, therefore, to turn to the multilateral mechanisms and structures which form part of the United Nations and its associated organizations, in order to hear the voices of all countries and to ensure that measures and steps taken at G20 meetings are supported by all.

At the same time, I would like to note a further reason for the need for reflection at the Summit. Financial crises are triggered when – partially due to the decline of correct ethical conduct – those working in the economic sector lose trust in its modes of operating and in its financial systems. Nevertheless, finance, commerce and production systems are contingent human creations which, if they become objects of blind faith, bear within themselves the roots of their own downfall. Their true and solid foundation is faith in the human person. For this reason all the measures proposed to rein in this crisis must seek, ultimately, to offer security to families and stability to workers and, through appropriate regulations and controls, to restore ethics to the financial world.

The current crisis has raised the spectre of the cancellation or drastic reduction of external assistance programmes, especially for Africa and for less developed countries elsewhere. Development aid, including the commercial and financial conditions favourable to less developed countries and the cancellation of the external debt of the poorest and most indebted countries, has not been the cause of the crisis and, out of fundamental justice, must not be its victim.

If a key element of the crisis is a deficit of ethics in economic structures, the same crisis teaches us that ethics is not “external” to the economy but “internal” and that the economy cannot function if it does not bear within it an ethical component.

Accordingly, renewed faith in the human person, which must shape every step towards the solution of the crisis, will be best put into practice through a courageous and generous strengthening of international cooperation, capable of promoting a truly humane and integral development. Positive faith in the human person, and above all faith in the poorest men and women – of Africa and other regions of the world affected by extreme poverty – is what is needed if we are truly to come through the crisis once and for all, without turning our back on any region, and if we are definitively to prevent any recurrence of a situation similar to that in which we find ourselves today.

I would also like to add my voice to those of the adherents of various religions and cultures who share the conviction that the elimination of extreme poverty by 2015, to which Leaders at the UN Millennium Summit committed themselves, remains one of the most important tasks of our time.

Right Honourable Prime Minister, I invoke Almighty God’s abundant blessings upon the London Summit and upon all the multilateral meetings currently searching for ways to resolve the financial crisis and I take this opportunity once again to offer you warm greetings and to express my sentiments of esteem.

From the Vatican, 30 March 2009

BENEDICT XVI

© Copyright 2009 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

This item 8864 digitally provided courtesy of CatholicCulture.org

Document InformationDescriptive Title:
Benedict XVI Letter to Gordon Brown on Eve of the G20 Summit in London 2009
Description:
Pope Benedict XVI sent this letter on March 30, 2009 to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown ahead of the Group of 20 summit to be held that week in
[

Posted by: Clem

February 24, 2009 11:22 AM

Statement by FIAMC on Obama Adminstration and the Culture of Life

STATEMENT ON THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION
AND THE CULTURE OF LIFE
The election of Barak Obama as President of the United
States marked an important watershed in American history
and culture. Running for office in a time marked by
economic and geo-political turmoil, Obama promised to be
a force for positive change, political reconciliation and
effective government. Unfortunately, President Obama has
begun his term with actions that will undermine respect for
human life, human dignity and religions freedom. We call
upon Catholic physicians and health care providers, and all
people of good will, to spare no effort in convincing
President Obama to reverse these decisions.
During the 2008 campaign, some Catholics and selfidentified
Catholic advocacy groups endorsed Barak
Obama for President based in part on his support for
economic justice and foreign policy, and in part on his
pledge to try to reduce the number of abortions by
increased social spending on support for pregnant women.
Yet as a legislator and as a candidate, Obama had taken
positions utterly opposed to respect for human life. For
example:
• Obama has long been an advocate of abortion on
demand, and has touted his 100% approval rating
from Planned Parenthood, the largest provider of
abortion in the United States;
• Obama opposed every limitation on abortion,
including laws requiring parental notification and
consent before minors could obtain abortions;
• Shockingly, as a state senator, Obama actively
opposed any protections
for infants born alive after failed abortion procedures
and misrepresented his record on this issue during the
2008 campaign;
• Finally, during the campaign, Obama proudly
proclaimed his support for the “Freedom of Choice
Act” (FOCA) – the most radical expansion of
abortion license in the world – and promised to sign
the law as President.
In addition to his unqualified support for abortion, Obama
has promised to provide federal funding for stem cell
research that destroys human life at the embryonic stage.
Since taking office, President Obama has engaged in a
series of actions that indicate that he is prepared to
implement his prior support for abortion.
• Within the first few days of taking office, Obama
overturned the “Mexico City Policy,” a U.S.
government policy that denies federal funding to
international agencies that promote or perform
abortion as a means of birth control;
• More ominously, when overturning this policy,
President Obama indicated his willingness to provide
financial support to the United Nations Population
Fund, an organization that lost U.S. government
funding after it collaborated with the Chinese
government’s coercive “one child” population policy.
• President Obama is filling his Cabinet and
Administration positions with supporters of abortion,
including Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State (who
has long been a proponent of abortion “rights” in the
United States and around the world; Rahm Emanuel,
White House Chief of Staff (who had a 100% voting
record with the National Abortion Rights Action
League (NARAL) as a member of Congress and a
reputation as an aggressive pro-choice politician);
Dawn Johnsen, nominee for Assistant Attorney
General for the Office of Legal Counsel (who was the
Legal Director for NARAL and part of the ACLU
Reproductive Freedom Project); Eric Holder,
Attorney General (who has been a longtime supporter
of abortion “rights”); Melody Barnes, Chair of the
Domestic Policy Council (who has been a member of
the boards of directors for both Planned Parenthood
and Emily's List); Ellen Moran, White House
Director of Communications (the current executive
director of Emily's List); and Thomas Perelli,
nominee for Associate Attorney General (who
collaborated with pro- euthanasia attorney George
Felos to successfully starve Terri Shiavo to death).
• While he has made no move to encourage the passage
of FOCA, many are still concerned that the
provisions of FOCA will be added piecemeal to other
bills and legislative acts.
• Finally, President Obama has declared his opposition
to the new HHS rule that protects the conscience
rights of health care providers. The rule was enacted
in the last days of the Bush administration in
response to many threats to the conscience rights of
physicians, pharmacists and health care providers.
In light of these actions and appointments, we are issuing
an urgent appeal to President Obama to reconsider his
support for abortion and research that can succeed only by
destroying innocent human life. In addition, we offer our
prayers, encouragement and appeals to Catholic
physicians in the United States to educate the public and
to oppose these efforts to promote abortion. Finally, we
appeal to all members of FIAMC to be vigilant in
opposing the new threats to human life and dignity that
could now come from the Obama administration officials
in foreign policy positions and at the United Nations.
Dr. José-Maria Simón, President
Rome, February 11, 2009
www.fiamc.org

Posted by: Clem

February 2, 2009 01:48 PM

Richard Doerflinger winner of "Life Prizes"

Pro-Life Expert Richard Doerflinger Among Winners of First-Ever "Life Prizes"

WASHINGTON—Richard Doerflinger, associate director of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities, was among six people awarded with the inaugural Life Prizes in Washington, DC on January 23. The event gathered over 1,200 people from across the country including pro-life leaders, their guests, and hundreds of student activists in town for the March for Life and the Students for Life of America annual conference.

Given by the Gerard Health Foundation, the awards honor six individuals or groups that have made unsurpassed strides in preserving and upholding the sanctity of human life. These winners have demonstrated their leadership in areas such as public advocacy, legal action, outreach, and public discourse activities.

Mr. Doerflinger is a bioethics expert and consummate researcher who has been involved in almost every major pro-life initiative in Congress since 1980, and has contributed to the pro-life efforts and statements of the U.S. Catholic bishops in the last quarter century.

"Richard Doerflinger has been the indispensable man at the juncture of bioethics, biotechnology, and public policy for many years," said Cathy Ruse, Executive Director of Life Prizes. "The intellectual guidance, integrity, and dedication Richard has provided are unmatched and have inspired many of us to dedicate our lives to the pro-life cause."

In his acceptance speech, Mr. Doerflinger acknowledged the challenges facing the pro-life movement, saying: "Ours are the facts people may not want to hear, the arguments they evade if they can. Our message confronts them with responsibilities, instead of making them go away." He called on others, especially young adults "in all academic fields – ethics, law, science, medicine – to place their skills at the service of life. We need articulate voices for those who
have no voice, to dismantle the false and seductive claims that endanger their lives. Please consider joining us."

Recipients of the 2008 Life Prizes, who will share $600,000 in prize money, were selected from among more than 100 nominees with the help of a Selection Advisory Committee consisting of Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver, the Reverend Dr. Alveda King, Ambassador Ray Flynn, and Professor Hadley Arkes of Amherst College.

The other five honorees this year are: the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG); Margaret "Peggy" Hartshorn, president of Heartbeat International; nurse, writer and activist Jill Stanek; Lila Rose, founder of student pro-life organization Live Action and president of its UCLA chapter; and Kay Coles James, founder and president of The Gloucester Institute.

Life Prizes is an initiative of the Gerard Health Foundation, the private charity foundation of pro-life philanthropists Raymond B. and Marilyn A. Ruddy. The award is named the "Norinne A. and Raymond E. Ruddy Memorial Pro-Life Prize" in honor of Mr. Ruddy's parents, who were strong believers in the pro-life cause.

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Posted by: Clem