Catholic Opposition to Assisted Suicides

Re “A Decision That Imperils All Human Life,” Commentary, March 22: As a physician, neurologist and psychiatrist I wish to applaud Cardinal Roger Mahony’s opinion criticizing the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on assisted suicide.

I am in the trenches with my patients and not the lofty ivory tower of the judicial bench. If physician-assisted suicide becomes legal, I predict we will be talking of a new medical syndrome: the Romeo and Juliet, King Henry VIII and Menendez brothers’ syndrome. Romeo and Juliet, when young adults and the elderly take their lives in suicide pacts; King Henry VIII, where disgruntled couples rid themselves of their inconvenient spouse; Menendez brothers, where any parent with a monetary worth but without a sentimental worth will be disposed of.

As a physician I know there will be no way to stop the potential abuse.

VINCENT M. FORTANASCE

Arcadia

Cardinal Mahony rails against the widely praised court decision that gives so many of us hope that we will be allowed to die in peace and dignity, free from arbitrary interference by an intrusive government into the most personal of individual decisions. There is no better response to the cardinal’s emotional denunciations than the rational and eloquent concluding sentences of the 9th Circuit Court’s decision:

“Under our constitutional system, neither the state nor the majority of the people can impose its will upon the individual in a manner so highly central to personal dignity and autonomy. Those who believe that death must come without physician assistance are free to follow that creed, be they doctors or patients. They are not free, however, to force their views, their religious convictions, or their philosophies on all the other members of democratic society, and to compel those whose values differ from theirs to die painful, protracted and agonizing deaths.”

JAN ELIASBERG

Pacific Palisades