Bishop Barres, Catholic sisters sue New York over assisted suicide mandates
Bishop John O. Barres of the Diocese of Rockville Centre and four communities of religious sisters have filed a lawsuit against New York’s attorney general and commissioner of health over a law they say would force them to participate in the process of physician-assisted suicide.
The Diocese of Rockville Centre, New York, and the religious communities — the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm, the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, the Missionary Sisters of St. Benedict, and the Little Sisters of the Poor — provide care for elderly and terminally ill people and say their Catholic faith prohibits them from participation in the process in any way.
Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a bill legalizing physician-assisted suicide in February, and the law goes into effect in August. Although some facilities can opt out of parts of the physician‑assisted suicide process, the exemptions are limited, and the law imposes additional requirements on the diocese and religious communities.
“We will never submit to New York’s culture of death,” Barres said in a statement through his attorneys at the Becket Fund.
“Assisted suicide is a grave moral failure that puts the elderly, the disabled, and those suffering from mental and emotional illness at risk of abuse and manipulation,” the bishop said. “Christ the Divine Physician calls us to accompany the sick and dying with compassion, not abandon them to death. The court should protect that millennia-old mission.”
The New York’s attorney general’s office and Department of Health did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Requirements in the law
More than a dozen states have legalized physician-assisted suicide over the past two decades, but New York’s opt out policy “is among the narrowest in the nation,” according to the lawsuit, and it affects some of the religious communities differently.
While most of the Catholic-run facilities qualify for the narrow “opt outs,” those that qualify must still follow existing laws to offer counseling to terminally ill patients that explains various options for end-of-life care, along with the “risks and benefits” of their options, or refer them to someone who will.
According to the lawsuit, this will now apply to the “option” of physician-assisted suicide, which means nurse practitioners or physicians “must either counsel terminal patients about the availability and benefits of [physician-assisted suicide], or else help the patient find a provider who is willing do so.”
Physicians covered by the opt outs must also assist in determining whether patients qualify for assisted suicide through actions such as referring them for mental health evaluations. Facilities covered by the opt outs — if they refuse to directly participate in the suicide itself — must refer the patient to a facility that will administer it, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit further states that providers must sign a death certificate that says the patient died from his or her underlying condition, rather than the drugs that ended his or her life. It states that facilities may also not be able to take adverse employment actions against employees who act in accordance with New York’s physician-assisted suicide law, even if the facility prohibits it.
At least one facility — the Missionary Sisters of St. Benedict — is not covered by the opt outs, which means it must also allow the prescription and the ingestion of the suicide drugs on its property. Those that qualify for the opt out are exempted from this requirement.
Adele Keim, senior counsel at Becket, told EWTN News the law essentially requires all the facilities to “take [the patients] through the process” and “allow that very involved process to take place in their facilities.”
“[They] will not do that,” she said, explaining that it violates their religious beliefs.
First Amendment objections
Keim said Catholic sisters have offered end-of-life care to New Yorkers for more than 100 years, “providing that personal accompaniment, which in Catholic teaching, is rooted in the example of Mary sitting at the foot of the cross as Jesus died.”
“That’s what they believe they’re called to do,” she said. “… [They are] bearing witness to the distinctly Catholic response to the suffering people experience in their final days."
Sister Justyna Owsiejko, O.S.B., of the Missionary Sisters of St. Benedict, said in a statement through Becket that “we are simple nuns whose mission is to serve God — and we do that by offering the aged a home in which to live their final days in peace, tranquility, and comfort, cared for by sisters who see the face of Christ in each person they serve.”
“New York is trying to force us to abandon that vocation and help our residents commit suicide,” she said. “That is something we will never do. Our foundress overcame war and exile to serve those in need — we will overcome this law to do the same.”
Mother Alice Marie Monica of the Little Sisters of the Poor said in a statement that “we have served God by welcoming the elderly poor and dying into our homes for nearly 200 years.”
“Our calling is to protect and care for needy seniors, not steer them toward suicide,” she said. “We will remain true to that mission, whatever the cost.”
The lawsuit argues that forcing Catholic-run facilities to participate in physician-assisted suicide violates their First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion. The Church teaches that life must be protected from conception until natural death.
The suit also argues that the law violates their freedom of speech by compelling them to counsel their patients about physician-assisted suicide.
“The sisters’ Catholic faith leads them to accept death as the natural end to a life well-lived: neither artificially prolonging it through burdensome technological and medical interventions that provide no reasonable benefit, nor artificially hastening it,” the lawsuit states.
“Above all,” the lawsuit adds, “it means that the sisters seek to personally provide a loving human presence alongside each person — bearing witness to the ending of a uniquely beautiful and unrepeatable life.”
