Catholic Nuns Take On New York’s ‘Coercive’ Assisted Suicide Law– thefederalist.com

Not a week seems to pass in which religious Americans are all but forced to go to court to defend their First Amendment rights from government overreach. It now appears the latest incident of this dynamic is coming full circle in Democrat-run New York.

On July 20, several orders of Catholic nuns and Catholic health care ministries sued the Empire State for enacting a new medically assisted suicide law they allege requires them to violate their religious faith. With the new statute set to take effect on Aug. 5, the Catholic plaintiffs in Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm v. James are seeking immediate relief in federal court to halt the state’s efforts to “coerce” them and other religious providers into forgoing their beliefs.

“Our clients have been dedicated for over 100 years each to serving some of New York’s most vulnerable citizens, and there are patients who actively seek them out. They actively seek them out because they share the same beliefs, they want to die in accordance with those beliefs, and New York is taking away their ability to do that,” Becket — Religious Liberty for All counsel Laura Slavis, whose group is representing the nuns and ministries, told The Federalist.

Signed into law earlier this year, New York’s Medical Aid in Dying Act (MAID) grants terminally ill adults the ability to request that their physician administer life-ending drugs. The statute lays out the process by which patients may do so, as well as the form language they must use when filing such a request.

In their lawsuit, the Catholic nuns and health care ministries argue that MAID — “which builds upon requirements in the [New York’s] Palliative Care Information Act” — “conscript[s] even religious healthcare providers and institutions to participate in the provision of physician-assisted suicide.” They claim that, under these statutes, “medical providers caring for terminally ill New Yorkers will have to proactively inform and counsel their patients about their ‘option’ to kill themselves.”