BERGEN COUNTY RIGHT TO LIFE

Health Care Reform and a Dispute about Dying

Congress’ effort to enact health care reform legislation has sparked a vigorous debate... Since the right to health care is based on the right to live, it is also clear that what attacks life is not health care at all, and not a legitimate goal of health care reform. The Church insists that reform is too important and legitimate a goal to be hijacked by destructive agendas such as government-mandated abortion coverage.

But concerns have also been raised about the way health care reform may treat people at the other end of life, specifically through Section 1233 of the current House bill on “advance care planning consultations.”

One worry here is that government or doctors may have agendas in tension with patients’ goals and interests…The evidence suggests they [living wills] are imperfect instruments that do not always serve patients’ interests… Patients may not realize that signing some forms could prompt the denial of even ordinary care like nutrition and hydration during a chronic, non-terminal illness.

Such concerns have persuaded key drafters of the Senate health care reform bill to drop this provision -- prompting a reaction from the nation’s leading proponent of physician-assisted suicide, the Hemlock Society (now renamed “Compassion and Choices”). The group said it had “worked tirelessly with supportive members of Congress” to insert the provision [section 1233], and lamented that it might be dropped due to “misinformation” that it would “promote euthanasia.” A hint to supporters: If you want to calm concerns that the provision could promote euthanasia, don’t boast that it is backed by groups promoting euthanasia.

It now seems Section 1233 will have a quiet and dignified death, and we can continue trying to agree on how to cover people who lack any health care at all.

Excerpted from a piece by Richard M. Doerflinger, Associate Director of the Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops 8/09