Tuesday, June 7, 2016

Assisted suicide - may be legal but it isn't right

Archbishop Prenderagst in Saturday's Sun on Doctor's conscience rights and medical aid in dying (MAID): Allow doctors to follow their conscience:
"...Martin Luther King Jr. once remarked, “Cowardice asks the question, ‘Is it safe?’ Expediency asks the question ‘Is it politic?’ Vanity asks the question ‘Is it popular?’ But, conscience asks the question ‘Is it right?’” 
We must sometimes take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but we must take it because our conscience says it is right. 
Physicians who wish to be true to their conscience are a gift to the community. The compassionate, competent care they provide in a way that is congruent with their conscience demonstrates their virtue. Society should thank them for their service. Society should affirm their efforts to be agents of healing and moral integrity who accompany patients in their final days and hours. If they cannot live their convictions of conscience in their avocation as healers, if they are forced to be agents of death, not life, if freedom of conscience is discarded as meaningless, then society faces the danger of moral death."

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