The Montana Supreme Court may have ruled Montanans have a right to die with dignity, but questions remain about the future of the new law and its implementation.
The court ruled that neither state law or public policy preclude doctors from prescribing lethal drugs to mentally competent, terminally-ill patients who want to end their lives.
Some supporters, like Helena personal injury attorney James Hunt, a former chancellor of the Episcopal Diocese of Montana, described the court’s Dec. 31 decision as affirming an “option for aid in dying and as compassionate Christian care-giving,” not suicide.
“I had a brother who died of pancreatic cancer and I watched him die, and I’ve watched others die,” said Hunt, who filed a brief for religious leaders in support of Baxter v. Montana. The lawsuit was filed by Compassion and Choices, a right-to-die advocacy group, on behalf of 75-year-old retired Billings truck driver Robert Baxter. He had terminal cancer and sought the right to obtain medication from his doctor to end his life. He has since died.
Joining Hunt’s brief were several Episcopal clergy, including the Rev. Steve Oreskovich, rector of Holy Spirit Church in Missoula.
How long till the “right” to “die with dignity” becomes the necessity to die at the government’s convenience?
It’s truly wonderful being “catholic.”
i.e., if only we were.
The “right to die” is so Episcopalian.
When was the most recent General Convention resolution on self killing and what did it say?
Cursory search through the archive shows that in 2000 D0008 resolved:
GC 2000 also commended the “Faithful Living, Faithful Dying” report whose authors believed that, “the Episcopal Church should continue to oppose physician assisted suicide” since “suicide is never just a private, self regarding act”.
Lambeth Conference 1998 in I.14 resolved:
Presumably the Episcopal Church didn’t submit a brief to the court though General Convention and the bishops of the Communion seem to have clear views about the ethics of self killing?