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<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\nIn an Aug. 24 news release, the Thomas More Society said, for now, the state cannot force its clients \u201cto tout the alleged \u2018benefits\u2019 of assisted suicide, refer patients to someone willing to prescribe lethal drugs, log those requests in a way that triggers the state\u2019s suicide \u2018qualification\u2019 process, avoid engaging in whatever the state decides is \u2018misinformation\u2019 about suicide, or falsify death certificates to conceal how a patient died.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thomas More Society, a Catholic-run public interest law firm based in Chicago, argued in a lawsuit filed Aug. 11 against the state\u2019s secretary of finance and professional regulation and the director of the Illinois Department of Public Health that the law infringes on their clients\u2019 religious liberty and free speech rights.<\/p>\n
The law states that patients who are seriously ill and given a prognosis of six months or less to live can request assisted suicide. Two doctors must concur on the terminal diagnosis, and, if needed, a licensed mental health worker would deem a patient mentally fit to self-administer a prescribed cocktail of powerful, high-dose drugs that would induce death. The cause of death on the death certificate cannot be listed as suicide and must state the originally diagnosed terminal disease.<\/p>\n
It also says that \u201cno health care entity shall prohibit a healthcare professional from \u2026 practicing aid-in-dying care outside of the healthcare professional\u2019s employment.\u201d A physician who refuses a request from a patient who then seeks help elsewhere, must transfer a patient\u2019s medical records \u201cwithout undue delay\u201d to a provider who would carry out their request.<\/p>\n
The Thomas More Society said providers following their conscience and refusing to do this face $10,000 fines, license revocation and criminal prosecution.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe foregoing restraint from enforcement includes refraining from treating Plaintiffs\u2019 noncompliance with any such provisions as a basis for liability, discipline, or licensure action under any law,\u201d Valderrama said in his order.<\/p>\n
He said the order is in place pending the result of two cases under appeal in the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, NIFLA v. Treto and Schroeder v. Treto. Thomas More Society is also involved in both suits, filed on free speech grounds and on infringement of religious liberty grounds, respectively.<\/p>\n
\u201cIllinois\u2019s new law forces faithful health care providers to cooperate in the state\u2019s suicide promotion scheme, and this agreement protects our clients from this grave assault on their religious beliefs,\u201d said Peter Breen, executive vice president and head of litigation at Thomas More Society.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo government has the power to tell a bishop what is or isn\u2019t moral or to require doctors to violate their oath to respect and protect human life,\u201d Breen said. \u201cThis is a critical first victory for these faithful doctors, for Bishop Paprocki\u2019s Catholic hospitals, and for the Lutheran Care Center.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr. Mary Keen Kirchoff, the first plaintiff named in the lawsuit said in the news release she had been wondering whether \u201cstaying true\u201d to her beliefs would \u201ccost me my career.\u201d<\/p>\n
She was \u201crelieved\u201d the state agreed to the temporary restraining order and \u201cgrateful\u201d to be able to \u201ckeep practicing medicine according to my integrity and my faith without that threat hanging over me \u2014 for now.\u201d<\/p>\n
The author, Simone Orendain, is an OSV News correspondent. She writes from Chicago.<\/em><\/p>\n\n
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<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\nkabarsula SLOT <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki of Springfield, Ill., is pictured in a July 11, 2018, file…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":362,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kabarsula"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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