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Doctors face orders to 'kill on demand'
New assisted suicide law
requires physicians to act
Physicians in Montana could be facing "kill-on-demand" orders from
patients who want to commit suicide if a district court judge's opinion
pending before the state Supreme Court is affirmed.
The case has attracted nominal attention nationwide, but lawyers with
the Christian Legal Service have filed a friend-of-the-court brief in
the pending case because of what it would mean to doctors within the
state, as well as the precedent it would set.
The concern is over the attack on doctors' ethics and religious beliefs
– as well as the Hippocratic oath – that may be violated by a demand
that they prescribe deadly chemicals or in some other way assist in a
person's death.
M. Casey Mattox, a lawyer with the CLS, told WND that states allowing a
"right to die" across the country – Oregon and Washington – include an
opt-out provision for physicians with ethical or religious opposition
to participating in killing a patient.
Montana's situation, created late last year in a decision from First
District Court Judge Dorothy McCarter in the Baxter et al. v. Montana
case, is different. There is no provision for a doctor to refuse such
"treatment" for a patient.
Just how did America arrive at a court case ordering doctors to help a
suicide? Read it in "The Marketing of Evil: How Radicals, Elitists, and
Pseudo-Experts Sell Us Corruption Disguised as Freedom"
In that case, Robert Baxter, 75, a retired truck driver from Billings
who suffers from lymphocytic leukemia, filed the lawsuit along with
four physicians in the state's district court system. They were aided
in the case by the assisted suicide advocacy group Compassion &
Choices, formerly known as the Hemlock Society.
Baxter told the organization's magazine that society already provides
death when animals are suffering.
"I just feel if we can do it for animals," Baxter said, "we can do it
for human beings."
The CLS, joined by the Christian Medical Association, yesterday filed
briefs asking the state Supreme Court to protect the conscience rights
of healthcare professionals.
The groups, representing more than 18,000 Christian medical and legal
professions, are urging the court to reverse the district court's
decision and recognize a right not to participate in assisted suicide.
"The trial court's decision to create a constitutional right to 'obtain
assistance from a medical care provider in the form of obtaining a
prescription for lethal drugs' threatens the rights of healthcare
professionals and institutions that hold sincere ethical, moral, and
religious objections to participating in the intentional killing of
their patients," Mattox said.
"Medical professionals should not be coerced to violate the Hippocratic
Oath in order to practice in Montana," he said.
If a "right to die" is to be recognized, it should be developed from
the people through the legislative process, not imposed by a single
judge, the brief also argues.
The district decision, the groups also point out, would seriously
undermine the relationship between doctors and patients. Patients could
be uncomfortable knowing their doctor had provided a lethal dose to
another patient, and doctors would have concerns about such demands
from patients.
"At a time when states are experiencing a healthcare shortage, making
Montana the only state in the union to coerce professionals to assist
in suicides could jeopardize the state's healthcare system," Mattox
said.
He told WND that the effort clearly is part of a nationwide agenda to
impose and mandate ethical standards on Americans. Similar are the
Obama administration's suggestions that that pharmacists may not have
the right to refuse to dispense abortion-inducing medications, and
doctors may not have a conscience right to refuse to do abortions, he
said.
"I don't know where it's coming from, but there is certainly a push
from government to tell people to set aside religious or ethical qualms
and to abide by whatever the government tells you is appropriate," he
said.
Mattox said the state still has several weeks to file its briefs in the
Montana case, and then there will be further arguments on behalf of
requiring doctors to provide terminal treatment.
"A mentally competent, terminally ill Montanan should have the right to
choose a peaceful death, when confronted by death," Kathryn Tucker,
Compassion & Choices director of legal affairs, told KTVQ-TV,
Billings.
But Montana Assistant Attorney General Anthony Johnston disagrees.
Johnston told the television station, "The laws governing the medical
profession say the medical profession is to heal, not to kill."
Contact: Bob Unruh
Source: WorldNetDaily
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Date: May 2, 2009
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The IFRL is the largest grassroots pro-life organization in
Illinois. A non-profit organization, that serves as the state
coordinating body for local pro-life chapters representing thousands of
Illinois citizens working to restore respect for all human life in our
society. The IFRL is composed of people of different political
persuasions, various faiths and diverse economic, social and ethnic
backgrounds. Since 1973 the Illinois Federation for Right to Life has
been working to end abortion and restore legal protection to those members of the
human family who are threatened by abortion, infanticide and euthanasia. Diverse though we are, we hold one common belief - that
every human being has an inalienable right to life that is precious and must be protected. IFRL is
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