Catholic eldercare providers in New York are suing New York Attorney General Letitia James and other state officials to stop implementation of a new law, the New York Medical Aid in Dying Act (MAID Act), which will force all medical providers in the state - including those who have religious objections - to guide patients through the process of committing drug-induced suicide. According to the lawsuit, the MAID Act when applied to another law, New York’s Palliative Care Information Act (PICA), will require any medical caregiver to inform terminally ill patients of their new right to suicide, and counsel them though the process of qualifying for suicide-inducing drugs:“The MAID Act builds upon requirements codified in New York’s Palliative Care Information Act (PCIA), which requires certain healthcare facilities and providers to inform terminally ill patients of their options for end-of-life care.“Prior to the passage of the MAID Act, the PCIA required facilities and providers to inform patients only of options for managing their pain or for obtaining whatever treatments might be available for their condition. It did not require facilities or providers to inform patients about the option to commit suicide.“Now that the MAID Act authorizes terminally ill patients to commit suicide, however, the PCIA and the MAID Act interact to create a “Suicide Counseling Mandate,” requiring healthcare providers to inform patients of and counsel them about the option to kill themselves.” The MAID Act will go into effect on August 5th of this year. The act provides a religious exemption to individuals who are not willing to prescribe the drugs themselves, though it does not provide any other religious exemptions, including from the requirement to counsel patients on the “benefits” of assisted suicide or from the requirement to work on qualifying patients for the suicide drugs. The plaintiffs also provide many citations of Catholic doctrine, which precludes them from assisting in any way in euthanasia (suicide). The doctrine can best be summarized by the following (from the suit):“As a matter of ‘definitive teaching,’ the Church has stated ‘that euthanasia is a crime against human life’ that is ‘an intrinsically evil act, in every situation or circumstance.’”The lawsuit further clarifies that the Church defines euthanasia as “an action or omission which of itself or by intention causes death” making even suggestions of committing suicide or guidance in the process a grave moral evil. Notably, the plaintiffs also allege that the potential MAID and PCIA enforcement violates a provision of the Affordable Care Act that restricts federal healthcare funding to any state which coerces individual providers into providing assisted suicide:“The Affordable Care Act has made clear that ‘any State … that receives Federal financial assistance,’ including Medicaid or Medicare funds, ‘may not subject an individual or institutional health care entity to discrimination on the basis that the entity does not provide any health care item or service furnished for the purpose of causing, or for the purpose of assisting in causing, the death of any individual, such as by assisted suicide, euthanasia, or mercy killing.’”Among the host of Catholic organizations suing are various orders of Catholic religious sisters who operate homes and provide medical care for the elderly, as well as the bishop and Diocese of Rockville Centre. They are being represented by the Becket Fund, a legal institute which seeks “to protect the free expression of all faiths,” according to its website. The plaintiffs are suing various New York officials responsible for enforcing the law, including Attorney General Letitia James, Commissioner of Health James V. McDonald, and Interim Char of the New York State Board for Professional Medical Conduct Michael C. Iannuzzi. Plaintiffs are requesting that the court declare the MAID Act unconstitutional under the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, and declare it in violation of other federal laws. In the meantime, they are requesting preliminary and permanent injunctions against any legal enforcement of those laws that would coerce them into participating in assisted suicide in “any way that their religious beliefs forbid.”If the court does not issue injunctions by August 5th, plaintiffs are liable to being prosecuted, sued civilly, or having their licenses revoked for non-compliance with laws that violate their religious convictions.This is a developing story.