Several others filed amicus briefs against physician-assisted suicide and assisted death from a diverse set of backgrounds, including an atheist, Dr. Kevin Yuill, and four Catholic bishops in Massachusetts.
Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley of Boston, Bishop Robert Joseph McManus of Worcester, Edgar M. da Cunha of Fall River, and Bishop William D. Byrne of Springfield warned that, if the physicians succeed, “Massachusetts common law would act to lessen the value of human life—along with the other interests identified above—having grave, long-lasting, and far-reaching negative effects for society.”
Arguments
Religion came up multiple times during the arguments. At one point, a judge interrupted Granik after she stated that there is “no fundamental right to assisted suicide.”
Justice Elspeth B. Cypher asked if Granik’s position was based on tradition and history or religion: “What’s the origin of that prohibition on suicide?”
Granik responded that the “prohibition on suicide and assistance in suicide is grounded both in historical and legal tradition.”
When Cypher asked whether the prohibition is historical because of religious beliefs, Granik went into more detail.
“The historical and legal tradition recognizes various justifications for the prohibition on suicide, and one of the primary ones being the state’s important reasons in protecting the life of all of its citizens,” she said.
“We would submit this is not the religious worldview or the moral or ethical judgment about suicide,” she added. “Rather it’s rational for the legislature here to prohibit Medical Aid in Dying as it prohibits other forms of assistance on suicide.”
Cypher posed a similar question to Schandevel, asking, “What in the history of the nation and the history in our traditions is not related to religion in this area? Is there anything in this area that shows that this is not a religious issue?”
Citing previous court decisions, he answered, “there is never an assertion that the common law prohibition on suicide, assisted suicide, is based on religious beliefs.”
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“It’s always based on the government’s interest in protecting human life,” he echoed Granik.
During his arguments, Schandevel reminded the court that “only rights that are deeply rooted in the history and tradition of this commonwealth and the nation can qualify as fundamental rights under the Massachusetts constitution.”
“So-called Medical Aid in Dying,” he said, is not — for at least three reasons.
“Suicide and assisted suicide both have been long prohibited in this commonwealth and throughout our nation’s history,” he began. “Second, so-called Medical Aid in Dying is assisted suicide and, third, as this court explained and clearly stated in Guardianship of Doe, ‘It is well settled that withdrawing or refusing life-sustaining medical treatment is not equivalent to attempting suicide.’”
Attorney John Kappos, who represented Kligler, described “medical-aid dying” as a “compassionate, peaceful” opinion for his client.
Kligler “spent 32 years of his career as a physician helping to treat the citizens of the commonwealth,” Kappos of the California law firm O'Melveny and Myers began. “Now, Dr. Kligler is asking the commonwealth to help him.”
Kligler, who has stage 4 prostate cancer, “faces the very real prospect that he will experience an unbearably painful death when he reaches the final days of his illness,” Kappos described.