A Catholic hospice’s silence on aid-in-dying pushed a terminal patient to suicide

Evidence

But the hospice in which he was a patient was affiliated with Providence Health & Services, a large Catholic health care network, which necessarily adheres to the Ethical and Religious Directives. The ERDs prohibit not just aid in dying but certain palliative treatments. Directive 61 states: “Patients experiencing suffering that cannot be alleviated should be helped to appreciate the Christian understanding of redemptive suffering.” … Somehow, John managed to get a gun into the hospice. On the last day of his life, he climbed into a bathtub, put the barrel in his mouth, and shot himself to death. We know of the story only because the nurses were so traumatized—and so angry at their employer for having compelled them to deny John the information that might have changed the outcome—that one filed a complaint with the state’s department of health. — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers, 937

Categorization

• SHARE: The redemptive-suffering doctrine mandate is a striking directive — Directive 61 quotes itself.
• XREF: connects to: Religious-liberty jurisprudence asymmetrically weighs believers’ burden against outsiders’ harm — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers: Inside the…, 950