We need your help to protect Delaware’s vulnerable citizens! House Bill 140, that legalizes physician-assisted suicide, has passed the House and is on its way to the Senate. (Read about it in The Dialog here) For years, the Catholic community has joined advocates for the disabled and others to oppose this bill that would put the lives of our most vulnerable citizens at risk. It’s time to stand up and make our voices heard. The ACP, American College of Physicians, nationally and locally oppose HB 140. The DAFP, Delaware Academy of Family Physicians, reviewed HB 140 in two different committees and opposed the bill as written, largely based on risks to the vulnerable. The PSD, Psychiatry Society of Delaware, is opposed largely due to its compromise of role of physicians.
Delaware Gov. Matt Meyer says he supports physician-assisted suicide legislation vetoed last year by Gov. John Carney.
Bishop Koenig welcomes Catholics supporting life to Dover; diocese officials submit more than 11,000 signatures to Delaware leaders:
Learn more from the National Catholic Bioethics Center:
| In Maryland: Physician assisted suicide: Stopped! This legislation did not come to a vote in either chamber. Thank you for your prayers and support. |
We urge all people of good will to demand that our lawmakers reject suicide as an end-of-life option and to choose the better, safer path that involves radical solidarity with those facing the end of their earthly journey. Let us choose the path that models true compassion and dignity to those facing end of life decisions and protects the most vulnerable from the deadly proposition of physician assisted suicide.” ~Most Reverend William E. Lori, Archbishop of Baltimore, Wilton Cardinal Gregory, Archbishop of Washington and Most Reverend William Koenig, Bishop of Wilmington. A Better Way Forward, January 20
Too often our older folks feel like they are a burden to their families given their need for increasing care in some situations,” Msgr. Steve Hurley recently said. “How many of us have heard an elderly family member or parishioner say ‘I don’t want to be a burden.’ A real fear is that PAS will give these vulnerable adults an avenue to an untimely and needless death. I was just reading that the age group with the most proportional suicides is those 85 and over.
