Health and Human Services Secretary Kennedy calls assisted suicide laws ‘abhorrent’
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. denounced assisted suicide laws as "abhorrent" during a House Committee hearing. Senator James Lankford questioned Kennedy about protections for people with disabilities amid lawsuits claiming assisted suicide laws discriminate. Kennedy highlighted concerns over increased access to assisted suicide for individuals with eating disorders and called for stronger safeguards. The discussion underscored the tension between state-level assisted suicide statutes and federal disability protections under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
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Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. denounced assisted‑suicide statutes as “abhorrent” and pledged to work with Congress to protect people with disabilities from what he described as discriminatory legislation. He made the remarks during a budget hearing before the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee, where Sen. James Lankford (R‑OK) highlighted recent lawsuits alleging that state‑level assisted‑suicide laws target disabled individuals and those with eating disorders. Kennedy warned that normalizing such laws would undermine a moral society and offered to collaborate on safeguards 1 2.
Sen. Lankford cited disability‑rights groups filing suits in several states, arguing that the laws violate the Americans with Disabilities Act and incentivize suicide among vulnerable populations.
Kennedy responded that the statutes are “abhorrent” and pointed to Canada, where assisted suicide now accounts for a leading cause of death, especially among people with disabilities and mental illness.
He emphasized that the United States permits assisted suicide in 12 states plus Washington, D.C., and that a database shows at least 14,000 deaths since 1997, likely an underestimate.
Delaware (Dec 2025): Disability and patient advocates sued, claiming the new law endangers people with life‑threatening disabilities and constitutes plain discrimination.
Colorado (July 2025): United Spinal and other groups alleged the state’s law is unconstitutional for discriminating against disabled persons.
California (2023): A similar suit argued the state’s assisted‑suicide framework increases risk for people with disabilities.
These cases underscore a growing pattern of litigation asserting that assisted‑suicide statutes disproportionately affect disabled communities 1 2.
In Canada, assisted suicide (medical assistance in dying) is the fifth‑leading cause of death, representing roughly one in twenty deaths. The country is debating further expansion to include individuals whose sole condition is mental illness. Kennedy used this example to argue that widespread adoption of such policies would erode moral standards globally 1 2.
Kennedy pledged to assist Congress in strengthening protections for disabled Americans and signaled willingness to collaborate on legislative or regulatory measures that could curb the perceived discriminatory impact of assisted‑suicide laws 1 2.
Assisted suicide laws conflict with Catholic doctrine on human dignity
Catholic teaching holds that assisted suicide and euthanasia conflict directly with human dignity, not because suffering diminishes the person’s worth, but because these acts intrinsically violate the moral law by intentionally causing death. The Church further teaches that legal approval of assisted suicide does not merely “regulate” an exceptional medical choice; it can create grave injustices, distort conscience, and weaken social trust by normalizing a supposed “right to die.”
Catholic doctrine anchors human dignity in the fact that every person is created in God’s image and therefore possesses an inalienable dignity that “prevails beyond all circumstances.”
Importantly, the Church explicitly rejects the idea that suffering cancels dignity. In current debates, euthanasia is sometimes described as “death with dignity,” but the Church replies that this is a mistaken use of the concept of dignity against life itself. The text states:
“suffering does not cause the sick to lose their dignity, which is intrinsically and inalienably their own.”
So, the conflict with dignity is not that the Church “fails to understand pain.” It is that the Church judges euthanasia/assisted suicide to be an incorrect moral response to suffering—one that treats the person’s life as disposable.
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The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith teaches that euthanasia is:
“an intrinsically evil act, in every situation or circumstance.”
And it reiterates that euthanasia involves the deliberate and morally unacceptable killing of a human person, which cannot be morally justified by any end.
Pope John Paul II similarly emphasizes that assisted suicide involves cooperation in an injustice:
“to concur with the intention of another person to commit suicide and to help in carrying it out … means to cooperate in, and at times to be the actual perpetrator of, an injustice which can never be excused, even if it is requested.”
This is where Catholic doctrine makes a clear distinction: dignity does not mean a person may be killed by another in order to end suffering; rather, dignity requires that caregivers remain “at the service of life,” including through compassionate care at the end of life.
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Catholic social teaching frames a person as an end in themselves, never merely an instrument for another’s purposes. When euthanasia/assisted suicide become legalized policy, the concern is that social institutions may treat people whose lives are difficult, costly, or burdensome as lacking value.
Samaritanus bonus explicitly argues that laws legalizing these practices:
Thus, the Catholic critique of “dignity” rhetoric is not abstract. It is that legalization can reflect—and reinforce—a utilitarian anthropology: dignity recast as dependent on usefulness, manageability, or emotional comfort rather than the intrinsic worth of the person.
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A key part of the Church’s argument about “conflict with dignity” is moral and social: law shapes culture and conscience.
Samaritanus bonus teaches that those who approve laws legalizing euthanasia/assisted suicide become:
“accomplices of a grave sin that others will execute”
and are “guilty of scandal” because such laws “contribute to the distortion of conscience.”
The Church also states that even when a request arises from “anguish and despair,” this does not change the moral nature of the act:
“the error of judgment … does not change the nature of this act of killing, which will always be in itself something to be rejected.”
And it stresses that assisted suicide is:
“never a real service to the patient, but a help to die.”
So, Catholic teaching does not deny that compassion and psychological anguish are real. Rather, it distinguishes understandable human suffering from the objective morality of intentional killing.
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To avoid a common confusion, Catholic teaching draws a boundary between:
Pope John Paul II clarifies that the Church must clarify the difference between discontinuing treatments that may be burdensome, dangerous, or disproportionate, and taking away ordinary means such as “feeding, hydration and normal medical care.”
He adds:
“the omission of nutrition and hydration intended to cause a patient’s death must be rejected,”
and the presumption should favor providing medically assisted nutrition and hydration when needed.
This matters for the “dignity” claim because the Church’s positive vision is care that protects life while relieving suffering—pain management, supportive presence, and appropriate use of treatments—rather than hastening death.
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From the standpoint of Catholic doctrine, assisted suicide laws conflict with human dignity because they:
At the same time, Catholic teaching insists that compassion requires true palliative care and support, and it distinguishes that from euthanasia—along with rejecting the deliberate omission of ordinary means like nutrition and hydration.