Washington D.C., Nov 2, 2016 / 15:19 pm
Representatives of the nation's capital voted Tuesday to approve physician-assisted suicide, despite strong opposition from religious, legal and medical leaders.
"Since the time of the Hippocratic oath – which long predated Christianity – the medical community saw the profound incompatibility of efforts to end life being facilitated by a healing profession," said Dr. Lucia Silecchia, a law professor at The Catholic University of America and a Washington, D.C. resident.
"Thus, while the Catholic and Christian understanding of the dignity of human persons, made in the image and likeness of God undergirds the moral critique of such statutes, the medical opposition long predates Christ, and the legal objections should compel anyone who observes how easily disregard for the life of one spreads," she continued.
Silecchia had talked to CNA on Oct. 17, when the assisted suicide bill was originally being considered.