As New York state lawmakers recently passed a bill that would allow terminally ill patients to end their lives with medical assistance, OSV News’ Charlie Camosy discussed physician-assisted killing with Kristin Collier, a doctor and associate professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Collier, who also serves as the director of the University of Michigan Medical School Program on Health, Spirituality, and Religion, discussed the ethical concerns at play and how Catholics can respond to arguments in favor of physician-assisted suicide.

— Charlie Camosy (Camosy): I just have to say: The recent decisions of the American Medical Association to not only strongly confirm their rejection of physician-assisted killing (PAK), but also to reject using euphemisms like “medical aid in dying” seem huge. What’s your sense of this?

— Kristin Collier (Collier): I share your enthusiasm and am encouraged by the AMA’s recent decisions. These decisions matter for many reasons, but a key one is this: To have a coherent discussion about complex issues, we must first be able to speak truthfully about what is happening.

The Board of Trustees at the AMA in this recent decision rightly noted that “descriptors such as Medical Aid in Dying (MAID), physician aid-in-dying, and death with dignity could apply to palliative care practices and compassionate care near the end of life that do not include intending the death of patients… this degree of ambiguity is unacceptable for providing ethical guidance.”

I want to remind your readers that we assist and aid our patients along the dying process all the time — that is what good palliative and hospice care aims to do. This, however, is categorically different than aiming to end a patient’s life (which is what physician-assisted suicide aims to do.)

— Camosy: The state of Michigan has been in the public eye about PAK ever since the dramatic debate over Dr. Jack Kevorkian killing some of his patients there illegally in the early 1990s. How has the debate gone there since then? How do your colleagues and students at the medical school tend to view this topic?

— Collier: I remember a colleague of mine telling me a few years ago that he predicted once the cultural memory of Jack Kevorkian fades in the state of Michigan, that efforts would be made to try to get physician-assisted suicide legislation passed in the state, and this is exactly what is happening.

The pro-physician assisted suicide group, Compassion and Choices, has been very active in the state of Michigan to build public support for physician-assisted suicide. They have been very active, giving public talks at events targeted at seniors in particular.

Regarding my colleagues, I haven’t done any formal polling of my colleagues and students of course, but in my conversations with them, I would say that the majority of folks with whom I’ve spoken on the issue frame it this way — that while they may have reservations about physician assisted suicide and would likely not choose it for themselves, they do not feel convicted enough to say that it should not be available for others.

In our conversations, my colleagues often draw upon medicine’s goal in relieving suffering. I then remind them that intractable physical pain and suffering don’t even make the top reasons people request physician-assisted suicide, and that even if they did, aiming to relieve suffering by eliminating the sufferer is a deeply distorted and impoverished model of healthcare.

I am thankful for groups like the patients rights action fund that are helping foster conversations about the realities of physician assisted suicide and are building a coalition of their own made up of people from various backgrounds with a shared goal of resisting the practice of physician assisted suicide which is an affront to both human dignity and the integrity of the profession of medicine.

— Camosy: It is interesting that there now seems to be some serious momentum across political differences to limit PAK. To what do you attribute this?

— Collier: I’m encouraged to see that several Democratic-led states have recently rejected or stalled physician-assisted suicide legislation. The reasons for this are likely multifactorial, but it looks like people across the political spectrum have clarity about what is at stake here — namely that practices such as physician assisted suicide put the lives of some of most vulnerable members of our human family — those with advanced age, serious illness and disability to name a few — at stake in a society which has decided, in a regime of physician assisted suicide, that their lives are expendable.

If we agree that all of the members of our human family have inherent worth and inviolable dignity, then it is always wrong to aim directly at their death. Physician-assisted suicide is an affront to human dignity and, therefore, an issue of justice and therefore transcends political party affiliation.

— Camosy: What are some ways that the church–both as smaller groups and as larger institutions–can be effective resistors of PAK?

— Collier: I think here of (Stanley) Hauerwas, who said that the church must be the church and that we best do that by living in a way that lives out the story of Jesus as a distinctive, often counter-cultural, faithful community.

As we say “no” to physician-assisted suicide, we must live in a way that shows what a “yes” to a good death looks like. And this starts with the choices we make in our own homes and families about taking care of our loved ones who are sick and dying, while at the same time advocating for better systems and policies for people to be able to do that well. This invariably will lead to us taking on additional burdens.

The current dominating cultural narrative, though, is one where burden carrying is to be avoided at any cost, and there is a subtle if not so subtle message that carrying burdens is ugly, to be avoided, and is frankly pathetic for both people involved. But we, as Christians, must acknowledge that this is an ugly and damaging lie. Nowhere in the Scriptures is burden carrying framed as something to be avoided, but instead, I think of Simon being asked to carry the cross of Jesus and what a privilege that was.

Of course, burden carrying can be arduous, but it can also be a beautiful privilege to help carry the cross of another and is a responsibility no one should have to shoulder alone.

Here I’m reminded of an icon that shows Jesus, as the Good Samaritan, literally carrying us on his shoulders. I believe that as Christians, this work of resisting physician-assisted suicide is work that reflects the gift of Christian hospitality, where we help shape a culture where burden bearing is not something to be avoided at all costs, but is to be seen as a gift to be able to help support one another well.

For additional reflections on this important topic, I would point your readers to your upcoming book, “Living and Dying Well: A Catholic Plan for Resisting Physician-Assisted Killing,” which I know is coming out this fall.

– – –
Charlie Camosy is professor of medical humanities at the Creighton School of Medicine in Omaha, Nebraska, and moral theology fellow at St. Joseph Seminary in New York.