Statements

As we mark the anniversary of Cardinal Bernardin's passing, let us remember his words to the U.S. Supreme Court, then considering assisted suicide and honor him by rejecting all such attacks on life today.

Full text of Cardinal Bernardin's letter to the U.S. Supreme Court

Dear Honorable Justices:

I am at the end of my earthly life. There is much that I have contemplated these last few months of my illness, but as one who is dying I have especially come to appreciate the gift of life. I know from my own experience that patients often face difficult and deeply personal decisions about their care. However, I also know that even a person who decides to forgo treatment does not necessarily choose death. Rather, he chooses life without the burden of disproportionate medical intervention.

In this case, the Court faces one of the most important issues of our times. Physician-assisted suicide is decidedly a public matter. It is not simply a decision made between patient and physician. Because life affects every person, it is of primary public concern.

I have often remarked that I admire the writings of the Late Father John Courtney Murray, who argued that an issue was related to public policy if it affected the public order of society. And public order, in turn, encompassed three goods: public peace, the essential protection of human rights and commonly accepted standards of moral behavior in a community.

Our legal and ethical tradition has held consistently that suicide, assisted suicide, and euthanasia are wrong because they involve a direct attack on innocent human life. And it is a matter of public policy because it involves a violation of a fundamental human good.

There can be no such thing as a “right to assisted suicide” because there can be no legal and moral order which tolerates the killing of innocent human life, even if the agent of death is self-administered. Creating a new “right” to assisted suicide will endanger society and send a false signal that a less than “perfect” life is not worth living.

Physician-assisted suicide also directly affects the physician-patient relationship and, through that, the wider role of physicians in our society. As has been noted by others, it introduces a deep ambiguity into the very definition of medical care, if care comes to involve killing. Beyond the physician, a move to assisted suicide, and perhaps beyond that, to euthanasia creates social ambiguity about the law. In civilized society the law exists to protect life. When it begins to legitimate the taking of life as a policy, one has a right to ask what lies ahead for our life together as a society.

In order to protect patients from abuse, and to protect society from a dangerous erosion in its commitment to preserving human life, I urge the Court not to create any right to assisted suicide.

With cordial good wishes, I remain

Sincerely yours,

Joseph Cardinal Bernardin

Archbishop of Chicago

Chicago, Illinois

November 7, 1996