RELIGION : Reject Right-to-Die, Bishops Ask
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WASHINGTON — The nation’s Roman Catholic bishops urged the Supreme Court today to refuse to give constitutional status to the “right to die.”
In papers filed with the justices in the first right-to-die case the court has agreed to hear, the bishops said lower court decisions on several “informed consent” issues have “confused recent social emphasis on absolute personal autonomy with the goal of informed consent, obliquely choosing to ignore the full import of the doctrine.”
At issue is the case of Nancy Cruzan, 31, who has been in what doctors describe as “a persistent vegetative condition” since a January, 1983, car wreck. Cruzan’s parents want to withhold food and water from a surgically implanted feeding tube, which doctors say would lead to her death. The Missouri Supreme Court, in a 4-3 decision, rejected the parents’ appeal.
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