From Bishop Barron's Word on Fire website. You should be able to access the entire letter through the link. We have excerpted parts -
Lest we find ourselves reassured by a burgeoning tendency to legalize this dark practice, let me borrow from Mark Twain when he said, “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”
Indeed.
George Orwell once sighed, “We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.”
And so let me begin.
As a physician, my daily practice is to heal the sick and prevent disease. In so doing, I try to uphold the dignity of each patient—treating them with respect while working in partnership to achieve a rich quality in concert with a reasonable quantity of life. Of course, I recognize the value of autonomy to afford patient choice, but that means a choice insofar as it simultaneously comports with the practice of safe, sound, and ethical medicine. To be sure, patient choice must be just and the care they receive beneficent, but that same choice must not—by slippery euphemism and crafty manipulation, emotional appeal and legal maneuverings—I repeat, must not compel a physician to commit a maleficent act, especially one that runs against centuries of common law and customs, statutory law and social contract, as well as the sacred conscience and sound judgment of the physician in the relationship.
So what does this mean when it comes to physician-assisted suicide?
In a few words, it means that a patient has many rights, but he does not have the right to demand that I assist him in killing himself any more than he can demand I prescribe him unnecessary narcotics, unwarranted antibiotics, or ill-considered surgery. To demand these measures indiscriminately would be to violate the dignity of the patient with risky (or fatal) outcomes as well as compromise my dignity (and conscience) as a trained and seasoned physician to thoughtfully consider the best care for the patient.
That is why, as a physician, I am opposed to physician-assisted suicide.
Dr. Worner then offers three reasons for opposing physician assisted suicide. He brilliantly lays out the points - hit the link above or here for the full article
1. Physician-assisted suicide fundamentally transforms the very nature of the physician-patient relationship.
2. Physician-assisted suicide is a solution in search of a problem.
3. When considering the fallout from physician-assisted suicide, the slippery slope is real.
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