The former Hemlock Society has a problem with religious freedom.

Compassion & Choices — the George-Soros funded assisted suicide lobbying group formerly known as the Hemlock Society — has filed an amicus curiae brief in the Zubik v. Burwell case, or the case of the Little Sisters of the Poor against the Health and Human Services contraception mandate.

This highly disingenuous, transparently anti-Catholic document emphasizes  advance directives and “medically sound healthcare decisions” — whatever that means to an entity that promotes death as a treatment option — never once mentioning that other little thing, C&C’s national assisted suicide agenda. It parrots a common misrepresentation of the Little Sisters’ position and cherry-picks the ethical health directives of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (which you can read in full context here) to portray Catholic doctors as infringing patients’ Constitutional right to refuse unwanted medical treatment as a matter of course, and Catholic healthcare systems as a sinister threat, a sort of ticking time-bomb about to explode on millions of unsuspecting Americans.

C&C and friends are notorious for ignoring opposition to assisted suicide from the disability rights and medical communities, instead venting their spleen at that perennial bogeyman, the Big Bad Catholic Church.  All this picking on Catholic hospitals totally ignores the fact that, for instance, some Jewish doctors will likely have serious conscience objections to actions that could end patients’ lives.  Watch this debate to see Second Thoughts Connecticut’s Stephen Mendelsohn call out C&C’s anti-religious prejudice (~19:30).  His opponent from C&C seems flustered by the idea of being called anti-Semitic (~32:50) — but either doesn’t realize the charge is really anti-Catholicism, or isn’t as bothered by that.

It’s bad enough that the government thinks it can take over nuns’ health plans and force them to include abortifacients, but there is clearly even more at stake. C&C’s national medical director shows their hand when he opines that some hospitals, “particularly those owned and operated by religious institutions,” won’t get with the program and let doctors prescribe the lethal drugs. Oh, sure, we won’t go after individuals, he promises ever-so-convincingly, at least for now; but if hospitals won’t let doctors kill patients, whether by an overdose or by starving them while they are less than fully conscious (which C&C seems just fine with in its amicus brief), they’d better refer out to someone with fewer scruples. In his hair-splitting analysis, that doesn’t constitute participation.

Welcome to the brave new world of assisted suicide: you will assist, or else!