Support Real Care, Oppose Assisted Suicide

Support Real Care, Oppose Assisted Suicide

Urge Your State Legislator to Support Real Care at the End of Life, NOT Assisted Suicide

Physician Assisted Suicide (PAS) will degrade the trusting relationship patients have with their providers. 

Our efforts to stop this legislation are working. While proponents of the bill have updated the language to address some of our concerns, no revisions can make this bill acceptable. This proposal remains one of the most aggressive physician-assisted suicide bills in the country, and The updated language still has many concerning provisions, including:

• No mental health evaluation requirement
• No family notification
• Few safeguards for people with disabilities
• No requirement for a nurse or doctor  to be present when the lethal drug is taken

Assisted suicide is neither compassionate nor about real choice. Protecting the choices of a few by legalizing assisted suicide will endanger the healthcare choices of all.

Furthermore, assisted suicide deliberately undermines human dignity by endangering the health of society’s most vulnerable populations, especially those who underutilize hospice and palliative care.

When care is expensive and killing is cheap, which path do we think will prevail? Urge Your State Legislator to oppose PAS.

Church Teaching

As Catholics, we are called to uphold human dignity and correct injustices as they persist in the social order. Our role as faithful citizens requires us to protect the poor and vulnerable. The legalization of assisted suicide contradicts these principles, as it hastens death based on the assumption that a person’s life no longer has meaning or purpose.

Pope Francis spoke out against the legalization of assisted suicide. In 2019, he stated, “We can and must reject the temptation, also induced by legislative changes, to use medicine to support a possible willingness of the patient to die, providing assistance for suicide or directly causing death by euthanasia.”

Furthermore, the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that “whatever its motives and means, direct euthanasia consists in putting an end to the lives of handicapped, sick or dying persons … is morally unacceptable” (CCC 2277). Instead, we are called to create principled care models that support the medical needs of all people.

Learn More

Join the Minnesota Alliance for Ethical Healthcare, MCC’s end-of-life care partner organization, in advocating for real care throughout life’s journey. You can learn more by reading their one-pager:

Ensuring your healthcare decisions are respected when you cannot speak for yourself is crucial. Minnesota Catholic Conference has developed two resources—Minnesota Catholic Health Care Directive and Guide to End-of-Life Decisions—to help you prepare and make morally sound healthcare decisions in alignment with Catholic teachings. Visit MNcatholic.org/healthcaredirective to order your directive and access other resources.