Below is a letter from Metropolitan Methodios of Boston concerning physician assisted suicide and the upcoming ballot question no. 2 in Massachusetts. We thank his Eminence for his leadership on this issue! I’m guessing that he will not receive the same kind of vitriol about economic issues as anti-abortion proponents have in giving guidance in the upcoming election.
To the Faithful of the Metropolis of Boston
Brethren,
On Tuesday, November 6, 2012, the residents of Massachusetts will go to the polls to vote for not only the next President of the United States, Senator and other elected officials, but there will also be three ballot questions for your consideration. Ballot question number 2 is entitled, “Prescribing Medication to End Life” or Physician Assisted Suicide.
This past week, I hosted at the Metropolis Center together with Cardinal Sean O’Malley a meeting of the Inter-Faith Religious Community of Massachusetts. Over 60 religious leaders representing a great diversity of brethren, not only from the Christian community but from the greater ecumenical community including the Islamic, were present and actively participated in the discussion which focused on this proposed legislation concerning physician assisted suicide. (Our Jewish brethren were not present because they were celebrating a High Holy Day.) If this legislation is passed, beginning on January 1, 2013, patients diagnosed with a terminal illness and given a prognosis of less than 6 months to live would have the ability to request a lethal prescription to end their lives.
For centuries now, all doctors take the Hippocratic Oath promising to practice medicine ethically and honestly, never doing harm to a patient. This proposed law would be impossible to control, and would have serious societal ramifications.
As Fr. Stanley Harakas has written, “The Orthodox Church believes that to elevate euthanasia to a right or an obligation would bring it into direct conflict with the fundamental ethical affirmation that as human beings we are custodians of life which comes from a source other than ourselves. Furthermore, the immense possibilities, not only for error but also for decision making based on self-serving ends which may disregard the fundamental principle of the sanctity of human life, argue against euthanasia.
Generally speaking, the Orthodox Church teaches that it is the duty of both physician and family to make the patient as comfortable as possible and to provide the opportunity for the exercise of patience, courage, repentance and prayer. The Church has always rejected inflicted and unnecessary voluntary suffering and pain as immoral; but at the same time, the Church also has perceived in suffering a positive value that often goes unrecognized in the logic of the world in which we live, a world characterized by secularism, materialism, and individualism.
Euthanasia is a Greek word meaning ‘a good death’. The only ‘euthanasia’ recognized in Orthodox ethics is that death in which the human person accepts the end of his or her life in the spirit of moral and spiritual purity, in hope and trust in God, and as a member of His kingdom.”
The Orthodox Church joins our brethren in the Ecumenical community, the American Medical Association, the Mass Medical Society and all people of good will in opposing question two on Election Day. I ask you to prayerfully consider this vital Ballot Question carefully, discuss it fully with your Parish Priest, family and friends, and vote NO on Question 2 in order to preserve the sanctity and dignity of human life.
With Archpastoral love,
M E T H O D I O S
Metropolitan of Boston
Source: Fr. Greg’s Blog
