Opinion Catholic hospitals refusing to provide medical services that they consider contrary to the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. anadians have faced this type of dilemma before: Christian-run and staffed entities that receive state funding objecting to various public policies and refusing to implement them, Catholic hospitals refusing abortions and evangelical charities insisting that they would not employ people who were in same-sex partnerships. The latest case is euthanasia, and RonNoble of the Catholic Health Association said, rather disingenuously, that, “We will ensure the safe transfer of care for individuals to an alternative health-care provider who can provide a consult about end-of-life options that are not available at a Catholic health-care facility.” Catholic hospital leaders themselves have already made it clear that they will not participate in assisted dying, in spite of laws passed this year allowing for euthanasia. But this new statement goes even further, and will likely reopen the entire debate about faith-based hospitals and schools. In the case of euthanasia, Ottawa has effectively said that individual doctors and nurses may refuse to participate, but that institutions are obliged to offer the service; which is, in all honesty, an entirely unworkable solution. The reality is that Roman Catholic Church teaching and the opinions of individual Catholics are two entirely different things and there are certainly many Catholics, and Catholic doctors, who are in favour of the right to die. Problem is that if they force the issue, they could put their jobs in danger and – as anachronistic as it may sound – risk excommunication by their church. It’s vitally important to cut through the nonsense and realize what is really at issue here. The alternative to assisted dying is not living; the alternative to assisted dying is unassisted dying. Dying in pain, anguish and often isolation. Death is never desirable but always inevitable and, while we must do all in our power to preserve life, the quality of that life is a major factor. Quality of life, however, is a politically loaded term. Disability does not denote lack of quality, daily struggle does not denote lack of quality, age does not denote lack of quality. We once revered the elderly as mansions of wisdom, nowwe tend to see them as slums that are better off demolished. So a civilized society must be extremely careful in how it regards the elderly, the unfit and the unhealthy. Nobody is suggesting that Catholic hospitals take this matter lightly, but that they do perform their given public role as health-care providers. Remember, Catholic hospitals receive enormous amounts of public money and are in a binding contract to deliver public services. Yet they refuse to even discuss this intensely delicate but vitally important subject. Imagine a vulnerable person in a Catholic hospital knowing without any doubt that they have a very limited time to live and that most of that time will be experienced – in spite of medication – in daily agony. Or consider someone with a neurological disease, their muscles and movement are wasting away yet their mind is still functioning and they know that one day they will drown within their own body and that there is nothing that can be done. The idea of moving such a patient to another hospital if they want to inquire about euthanasia is not only impractical, it’s also, to be candid, cruel. By the nature of the situation, the only people who would want to discuss assisted dying would be the acutely vulnerable, in pain and distress. I see nothing Christian about moving such people to a new, strange location simply to satisfy the religion-formed consciences of a conservative minority. As a committed Christian, I feel very strongly that people of faith have a right, and obligation, to live according to their religion. Nor do I accept any facile nonsense that faith is an entirely private matter – Christians have a duty to oppose injustice or help the marginalized in spite of what any government says or does. But Catholic hospitals not only receive public funds, they also cater to non-Catholic patients and operate not in some dictatorial culture, but in a pluralistic and democratic society. Euthanasia has not come about through some evil fiat, but only after years – decades – of research, consideration and discussion. This is about church and state, modern and archaic, reasonable and unreasonable. Closing the door on informed discussion does nobody any good, especially the terribly, tragically sick. with Michael Coren 24 | www.snowbirds.org
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