Palliative care can alleviate pain with powerful opioids, without risk to life, and generally allowing the patient to remain alert. Palliative care also addresses psychological, emotional and spiritual needs of the patient. Many patients consider suicide not because of intractable pain, but because of feelings that they are a burden to others. When a patient inquires about assisted suicide, they are rarely evaluated for treatable depression. Optimum palliative care requires training and experience. A doctor in the Netherlands observed that assisted suicide “becomes a substitute for learning how to relieve the suffering of dying patients.” During a period when 1,832 hospices opened in other states, only 5 opened in Oregon, where assisted suicide is legal. Seriously ill patients deserve our love and every effort to meet their needs, not encouragement to end their lives.
Copies of the document (8.5 X 11) are available at the Hospitality Desk at the church and at the Ave Maria Center.
The full article can be found: English Spanish
The articles, in both English and Spanish, are available at the Hospitality desk in the church, and in the Ave Maria Center.