The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court was urged to uphold the state's protections for the terminally ill through an amicus brief for Kligler v. Healey.
Alliance Defending Freedom said a friend-of-the-court brief filed last Wednesday requests the court to uphold the Massachusetts law so as to preserve the "well settled" distinction between "attempting suicide" and "withdrawing or refusing life-sustaining medical treatment."
The brief was filed in behalf of Euthanasia Prevention Coalition USA, a nationwide organization that opposes assisted suicide and euthanasia. The organization supports measures for the improvement of people's quality of life. The plaintiffs are Dr. Roger Kliger and Dr. Alan Steinbach who filed a case against Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey and Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O'Keefe.
The said protections for the terminally ill "seek to establish a previously unrecognized right to 'medical aid in dying,' where a doctor prescribes lethal medication for use in committing suicide." The brief pointed out that assisted suicide is prohibited by the history and tradition of not only the state but also the nation. This is on top of the opposition of "the vast majority of states and secular medical associations" for it.
"Creating a right to physician-assisted suicide would not be a mere expansion of the right to refuse life-saving treatment. The right to reject treatment is based on the common-law right to reject a battery. And death occurs, if at all, by natural causes. Assisted suicide is different: it invites the intrusion of a lethal agent into the patient's body, intentionally causing death," the brief stressed.
According to the Network for Public Health Law, the Kliger v. Healey case challenges Massachusetts' prohibition of Medical Aid in Dying. The case involves a "terminally ill patient and his physician sought a declaration on whether: (1) the practice of MAID constitutes involuntary manslaughter under Massachusetts law; (2) applying the law of involuntary manslaughter to MAID violates the Massachusetts Constitution; and (3) whether physicians may provide information and advice about MAID to terminally ill patients."
The Massachusetts High Court acknowledged that physician-assisted suicide has seen an increase in public acceptance. It also acknowledged that prohibiting MAID is a legitimate public interest yet the plaintiffs to the case "failed to demonstrate a violation of their due process or equal protection rights."
The court concluded that it is legally permitted to provide information about MAID but the decision on its being legally authorized is beyond its jurisdiction.
"It further stated that the legislature, not the court, is best positioned to weigh the difficult moral, societal, and governmental questions involved and to decide under what restrictions MAID may be legally authorized," the Network for Public Health Law said on the court's decision.
ADF Senior Counsel Kevin Theriot stressed the value of human life that the government must "preserve" despite any "disability or illness." Theriot pointed out that the constitution does not make physician-assisted suicide a person's right.
"Every human life-regardless of disability or illness-is of great value, and the government must do all it can to preserve life, especially for the most vulnerable who cannot advocate for themselves. There is no constitutional right to physician-assisted suicide in Massachusetts or any other state, and we hope the court will uphold the commonwealth's longstanding history and tradition of prohibiting this perversion of a physician's oath and duty to 'do no harm," Theriot said.
Euthanasia Prevention Coalition Executive Director Alex Schadenberg, in a statement released early this month, stressed that they are pushing against state bills that allow assisted suicide. Schadenberg underscored that they are "once again focusing on conscience rights for healthcare professionals in Canada as well as opposing the many assisted suicide bills and court cases in the US."
Schadenberg said Euthanasia Prevention Coalition "is directly opposing the state bills and the several court cases to legalize or expand assisted suicide laws in the US."
