Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition
EPC-USA was the only friend-of-the-court brief that was also asked to provide an oral argument before the Massachusetts Supreme Court.
The case known as Kligler concerns Dr Roger Kligler is living with prostate cancer and seeking death by assisted suicide and Dr Alan Schoenberg, is willing to prescribe a lethal drug cocktail for Kligler to die by assisted suicide. Kligler who claimed to be terminally ill when the case began in 2016 is very much alive today.
Kligler and Schoenberg are arguing that doctors cannot be prosecuted for prescribing lethal drugs for assisted suicide to a competent terminally ill person under the Massachusetts state constitution.
In a friend-of-the-court brief, ADF attorneys argue that the two doctors “seek to establish a previously unrecognized right to ‘medical aid in dying,’ where a doctor prescribes lethal medication for use in committing suicide.”
“Creating a right to physician-assisted suicide would not be a mere expansion of the right to refuse life-saving treatment,” the ADF said, adding that the “vast majority” of U.S. states and medical associations oppose it.
Salai reported that Sara Buscher, the chair of EPC-USA stated:
Sara Buscher, chair of the nonprofit Euthanasia Prevention Coalition USA that filed the amicus brief through Alliance Defending Freedom, said the two doctors want to redefine the purpose of medical treatment.
“Major medical organizations like the American Medical Association oppose the practice of assisted suicide for good reason: turning doctors into killers is the opposite of a doctor’s role in medicine,” Ms. Buscher said. “Assisted suicide treats some people, particularly the disabled, as better off dead.”
The EPC-USA brief agrued the following:
- There is no fundamental right to physician-assisted suicide in the Massachusetts Constitution.
The Appellants seek to establish a previously unrecognized right to “medical aid in dying,” where a doctor prescribes lethal medication for use in committing suicide. But the widespread prohibition—not acceptance—of assisted suicide is deeply rooted in Massachusetts’ and the Nation’s history and tradition. And the vast majority of states and secular medical associations oppose it today.
- There is a fundamental difference between refusing medical treatment and assisted suicide.
Creating a right to physician-assisted suicide would not be a mere expansion of the right to refuse life-saving treatment. The right to reject treatment is based on the common-law right to reject a battery. And death occurs, if at all, by natural causes. Assisted suicide is different: it invites the intrusion of a lethal agent into the patient’s body, intentionally causing death.
- A right to assisted suicide cannot be a limited right as claimed by the appellants.
Appellants are wrong to suggest a constitutional right to assisted suicide could be limited to a narrow class of people. And that would create problems courts are not equipped to solve.
EPC-USA argued that if there is a right to assisted suicide then it would be soon declared discriminatory to limit that right to certain groups of people, such as people who are terminally ill leading to an ever expanding assisted suicide regime.
Links to more articles on the Massachusetts assisted suicide Kligler court case:
- If assisted suicide were legal, plaintiff in Massachusetts assisted suicide court case may have died prematurely (Link).
- EPC-USA files brief to Massachusetts Supreme Court in the Kligler assisted suicide case (Link).
- Massachusetts Supreme Court to hear assisted suicide case (Link).
- Assisted suicide lobby to appeal Massachusetts court decision stating that there is no right to assisted suicide (Link).
- Disability leaders praise Massachusetts court decision stating that there is no right to assisted suicide (Link).
- Massachusetts court decision explains why assisted suicide should not be legal (Link).
- Massachusetts court rules that there is no right to assisted suicide (Link).
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