LA archbishop says US society is no longer one for the vulnerable

The US has crossed a line from being a society that cares for the vulnerable to one that seeks to be rid of those whose suffering is deemed inconvenient, the archbishop of Los Angeles has said.

Criticising the introduction of a new “End of Life Options” law allowing doctors in California to prescribe lethal medications for terminally ill patients who ask for them, Archbishop Jose Gomez said the US had crossed “from being a society that cares for those who are aging and sick to a society that kills those whose suffering we can no longer tolerate”.

The archbishop called the law, which makes California the fifth US state to allow physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients, unjust, and said the “proper response to an unjust law is conscientious objection”.

Dr Gomez said “the logic of assisted suicide leads inevitably to the government and corporate administrators essentially deciding which lives are worth saving and caring for and who would be better off dead”.