CNA\/EWTN News<\/a>).- Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch made a crucial ethical distinction in his response to questions about doctor-prescribed suicide during his confirmation hearing on Wednesday, said one ethicist.<\/p>\nWhen asked what his views were on end-of-life care in the case of a terminal patient enduring unbearable pain, Gorsuch replied that \u201canything necessary to alleviate pain would be appropriate and acceptable, even if it caused death. Not intentionally, but knowingly. I drew the line between intent and knowingly.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is an important distinction, said Edward Furton Ph.D., director of publications and an ethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center. He told CNA that the situation presents the case of \u201cdouble-effect,\u201d where proper steps taken to alleviate a patient\u2019s pain may have the side effect of causing their death, but are permissible when certain conditions are met.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve got a good intention, the action you\u2019re doing is good \u2013 in this case, it\u2019s alleviating the pain with appropriate amounts of medication,\u201d he explained, emphasizing that the dosage of pain medication may never be lethal and should not render the patient unconscious except when \u201cabsolutely necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve got a side effect, which is not intended, but is foreseen. It is going to happen, but you don\u2019t want it to happen, you\u2019re doing your action for another reason. And there is really no other route to alleviate the pain. So this is perfectly appropriate, it makes good sense,\u201d Furton said.<\/p>\n
Gorsuch, a judge on the Tenth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, faced his third day of questioning before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday as he is considered for confirmation to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n
He wrote a book in 2006 on \u201cThe Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia.\u201d Gorsuch explored various arguments made in favor of doctor-prescribed suicide and euthanasia before offering his own observations and opinions.<\/p>\n
The book \u201cwas my doctoral dissertation, essentially,\u201d he told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. It was written \u201cin my capacity as a commentator\u201d and not as a judge, he clarified. The book was published the same year he was nominated and confirmed to the Tenth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.<\/p>\n
He argued in the book that \u201chuman life is fundamentally and inherently valuable, and that the intentional taking of human life by private persons is always wrong.\u201d Regarding doctor-prescribed suicide, he upheld laws prohibiting it, basing his argument upon \u201csecular moral theory.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked by Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) to briefly discuss his book, Gorsuch suggested that doctor-prescribed suicide could pose a significant threat \u201cto the least amongst us \u2013 the vulnerable, the elderly, the disabled.\u201d<\/p>\n
It does this by becoming a cheap end-of-life option offered to vulnerable people, he said. \u201cI do know that when you have a more expensive option and a cheaper option, those who can\u2019t afford the more expensive option tend to get thrust into the cheaper option.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a long book. It\u2019s complicated. And I do not profess to have the right, final, or complete answer,\u201d he admitted. \u201cI hoped, at most, to contribute to a discussion on an unanswered social question where all people \u2013 and I do think all people \u2013 have a good faith interest in trying to reach some consensus socially on it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Currently, doctor-prescribed suicide is legal in six states and in the District of Columbia, with some 25 states to consider legalizing it this year.<\/p>\n
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) pressed Gorsuch on the matter on Wednesday, citing California\u2019s End of Life Option Act that legalized the procedure in the state.<\/p>\n
\u201cI, in my life, have seen people die horrible deaths \u2013 family, of cancer \u2013 when there was no hope. And my father, begging me, \u2018stop this Diane, I\u2019m dying\u2019,\u201d she explained. \u201cAnd my father was a professor of surgery.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd the suffering becomes so pronounced \u2013 I just went through this with a close friend \u2013 that this is real. And it\u2019s very hard,\u201d she continued, asking him what he thought of California\u2019s law.<\/p>\n
Gorsuch, speaking in his personal capacity, said that for some terminal patients, \u201cat some point, you want to be left alone. Enough with the poking and the prodding. \u2018I want to go home and die in my own bed in the arms of my family\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd the Supreme Court recognized in Cruzan\u201d \u2013 a 1990 decision on an end-of-life case \u2013 \u201cthat that\u2019s a right in common law, to be free from assault and battery, effectively. And assumed that there was a Constitutional dimension to that. I agree.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gorsuch added that the matter of a terminal, suffering patient foregoing treatment was a personal one for him. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYour father, we\u2019ve all been through it with family. My heart goes out to you. It does. And I\u2019ve been there with my dad. And others,\u201d he told Feinstein.<\/p>\n
Speaking as an ethicist, Furton clarified that in end-of-life cases, pain management may certainly be used but should never be an overdose and should not render the patient unconscious except in extraordinary circumstances.<\/p>\n
Pain medication should be \u201cmeasured, so that it matches the pain that the patient is experiencing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t just give them a massive dose, or something like that,\u201d he said, as \u201cit would bring about their death in a way that was not measured and not connected to a proper intention which is to alleviate the pain.\u201d<\/p>\n
And medication should not induce unconsciousness, except in extraordinary cases, he insisted.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnother important element is that the loss of consciousness in a person who is dying is very significant, and shouldn\u2019t happen unless it\u2019s absolutely necessary, because we should meet our Maker alert and in a prayerful way,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Furton praised Gorsuch\u2019s knowledge and treatment of the matter as someone who \u201chas obviously thought about these issues very carefully.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I think we should be happy that he has such a strong sense of where to draw the line in a case such as this, where you\u2019ve got a person with intractable pain and needs to have it remedied,\u201d Furton said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe understands that that is not intentionally killing somebody. It\u2019s not euthanasia, it\u2019s not physician-assisted suicide. A lot of people don\u2019t understand the difference between those two, so it\u2019s good that he does because he\u2019s obviously going to be a man of considerable power and importance in the area of law.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Washington D.C., Mar 22, 2017 \/ 04:11 pm (CNA\/EWTN News).- Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch made a crucial ethical distinction in his response to questions about doctor-prescribed suicide during his confirmation hearing on Wednesday, said one ethicis…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1031,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-us"],"yoast_head":"\n
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