To Live Each Day with Dignity

U.S. Bishops’ Policy Statement on Assisted Suicide

The US Bishops on June 16, 2011 approved “To Live Each Day with Dignity: A Statement on Assisted Suicide”.

• BISHOPS’ STATEMENT: “To Live Each Day with Dignity”
• BISHOPS' STATEMENT with hyperlinks: "To Live Each Day with Dignity"
• Church Teaching
• Assisted Suicide Fact Sheets
• Prayers During Serious Illness
• Select Educational Articles
• Columns and Commentary

UPDATE: Passage of Physician-Assisted Suicide Law in Vermont
Statement of The Most Reverend Salvatore R. Matano Regarding the Legalization of Doctor-Prescribed Suicide  (May 20, 2013)

Cardinal O'Malley Comments on the Vermont Assisted Suicide Law Saying it Reveals a "Slippery Slope" (May 21, 2013)

Church Teaching

• Evangelium Vitae (On the Value and Inviolability of Human Life) encyclical by Pope John Paul II, 2005 (en Español)
• Declaration on Euthanasia by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 1980 (en Español)
• Statement on Euthanasia by the Administrative Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1991

Fact Sheets

• Oregon’s Assisted Suicide Law: What Safeguards?, May 23, 2012
• Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia: Beyond Terminal Illness, May 23, 2012
• Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia: From Voluntary to Involuntary, June 13, 2011
• Physician-Assisted Suicide: Threat to Improved Palliative Care, June 9, 2011
• Suicide and Assisted Suicide: The Role of Depression, May 18, 2011
• The U.S. Supreme Court's 1997 Decisions on Assisted Suicide, May 13, 2011
• Assisted Suicide: What is at Stake?, May 13, 2011

Prayers

• Prayer Resources – Prayers, Litanies, and Intercessions

Select Educational Articles

• Life Issues Forum: Hemlock’s Twisted Logic, by Richard Doerflinger, June 24, 2011 (en Español)
• Pope John Paul II: Dying with Dignity,
  by Rev. J. Daniel Mindling, O.F.M. Cap., 2005 (en Español)
• Assisted Suicide: Death by “Choice”?, by Rita L. Marker, Esq., 2009 (en Español)
• Physician-Assisted Suicide: The Wrong Approach to End of Life Care, by F. Michael Gloth, III, M.D., 2003 (en Español)
• Hope for the Journey: Meaningful Support for the Terminally Ill, by Kathy Kalina, RN, CRNH, 2001 (en Español)
• Killing the Pain, Not the Patient: Palliative Care vs. Assisted Suicide, by Richard Doerflinger and Carlos F. Gomez, M.D., PH.D., 1998
• The Quality of Life: Who's to Judge? by Richard Doerflinger, 1996


Columns and Commentary

• Remarks on the Defeated Massachusetts Ballot Initiative on Physician Assisted Suicide - Cardinal Sean O'Malley, Pro-Life Committee Chairman, USCCB November 2012 General Assembly