In recent years, eight other states and the District of Columbia have allowed the practice. Oregon was out front in permitting aid-in-dying, approving it more than two decades ago. “I can call them up with a couple days’ notice and do it.” “This way I can say, ‘Yes, I can go,’” he said last summer. So the brief message on his phone meant an important victory. When Centura fired Morris for encouraging “a morally unacceptable option,” Mahoney lost both his doctor and the confidence that he would be able to end his life when the suffering became too great. That leaves dying patients like Mahoney feeling abandoned during the most vulnerable time of their lives. In opposing the practice, the country’s religious institutions have received support from the Trump administration, which has consistently given providers wide latitude to refuse to participate in medical interventions they object to on religious grounds, though that previously applied primarily to abortion and contraception. He was the patient at the center of a legal battle over whether a Christian-run hospital system could bar its doctors from following the law. Mahoney had access to lethal drugs under Colorado’s 2016 End of Life Options Act, a law that allows terminally ill patients to obtain medications to end their lives. and state constitutions’ freedom of religion guarantees. In December, Centura officials filed a countersuit that says the hospital’s actions are protected by the U.S. She sued the hospital for wrongful dismissal the case is pending. Barbara Morris, for consulting with Mahoney with the aim of carrying out his wishes.Īs his condition deteriorated over the summer, Mahoney left the lawsuit, with Morris still unable to assist him. The hospital has barred its doctors from following the state law. Aid-in-dying is a legal right, but desperate patients are often left feeling they are doing something terribly, morally wrong.Ĭentura Health Corp., the Christian-run hospital where Mahoney sought treatment for his cancer, regards the practice as “intrinsically evil,” citing the firm’s governing rules, the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services. One in 6 hospital patients is now cared for at a Catholic hospital, according to the Catholic Health Association. states have legalized aid-in-dying laws, exercising that option is challenging for patients in a country where most large hospital systems have deep religious ties and the religious right is powerful. state laws that allow terminally ill patients to obtain medications to end their lives.Įven as an increasing number of U.S. After months of obstacles, the frail 64-year-old finally had access to lethal drugs under Colorado’s 2016 End of Life Options Act, one of a growing number of U.S. Mahoney, a once-rugged outdoorsman now reduced to bones, his belly swollen with incurable cancer, sighed with relief. Rodney Diffendaffer, a clinical pharmacist in Longmont, 45 miles away, had left a message. ― The call came the last week of September, when Neil Mahoney could still stagger from his bed to the porch of his mobile home to let out his boisterous yellow Lab, Ryder. This story can be republished for free ( details).
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