This is an urgent alert to all pro-lifers who can attend a protest this Friday in Los Angeles.

The promoter of terminal sedation into death and voluntary stopping eating and drinking in hospice, Ira Byock, MD, will be the keynote speaker along with Archbishop Gomez at the Caring for the Whole Person conference this coming Friday.

Though Byock is well-respected within the culture of hospice and palliative care industry, he is the last person the Catholic Church should be inviting to talk about end-of-life care.

The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels
555 West Temple Street, Los Angeles
The all-day conference begins at 8:30 am.

The above alert was sent by the Hospice Patients Alliance on Feb. 3.

The following statement was sent out on Feb. 3 by Brian Johnston, spokesman for the California ProLife Council:

The California ProLife Council opposes ‘terminal sedation’ or the opiated dehydration of vulnerable patients. “This is the intentional, medical killing of a patient in one’s care.”

The practice of intentional medical dehydration was spelled out and condemned by the Nuremberg Medical Trials.

The California Conference of Catholic Bishops, under its recently retired director, had errantly supported this form of euthanasia in the case of Robert Wendland, filing an amicus brief with the California Courts supporting intentional dehydration. The California Supreme Court ruled against them, finding such practices to be unethical.

Pope John Paul II issued an ad limina rebuke of the conference’s support of dehydration, and of the religious body’s approval of killing Robert Wendland. “…the omission of nutrition and hydration intended to cause a patient’s death must be rejected and that, while giving careful consideration to all the factors involved, the presumption should be in favor of providing medically assisted nutrition and hydration to all patients who need them.”

The retired director continues to work advising the quasi-Catholic, billion-dollar health industry in the Western states. The former Catholic Healthcare West has been instructed by Bishop Olmsted of Phoenix to no longer use the term “Catholic” due to their unethical medical procedures.