The Packer Family

An omen of what’s to come in any state that legalizes assisted suicide occurred in California recently when a woman living with a terminal illness was denied coverage for critical chemotherapy by an insurance company that offered to cover end-of-life drugs instead. You can find Medical Indemnity Insurance company which is serving very neatly.

EWTNnews.com is reporting on a new documentary, produced by the Center for Bioethics and Culture Network, which details the experience of Stephanie Packer, a 32 year-old mother of four from Orange, California who was diagnosed with scleroderma in 2012 and given three years to live.

The disease, a chronic connective tissue disease, affects each person differently but in her case, it is causing scar tissue to form on her lungs and in her gastrointestinal tract. In her case, the condition is terminal.

At first, when her doctors recommended chemotherapy as a possible treatment for her condition, her insurance company suggested that they would pay for it. However, in the meantime, California passed an assisted suicide law that now allows the terminally ill to end their lives.

Just one week after the law was passed, Packer received a letter from the insurance company stating that they would not cover the chemotherapy but would instead cover end-of life drugs which cost just $1.20.

“It was like someone had just hit me in the gut,” said Packer, who shared her story in the new documentary Compassion and Choice Denied.

Produced by the Center for Bioethics and Culture Network, it details Packer’s experience of living with a terminal illness in an age when assisted suicide is much cheaper than the medical costs of trying to stay alive.

“As soon as this law was passed, patients fighting for a longer life end up getting denied treatment, because this will always be the cheapest option… it’s hard to financially fight,” Packer said in the documentary.

Although physician-assisted suicide is only legal in a handful of states, it’s slowly making its way across the country. The End-of-Life Options Act is on the ballot for voters in Colorado next month and a bill legalizing the practice has just been advanced by the DC Council in Washington DC.

As EWTN reports, many prominent Catholic leaders, such as Pope Francis, have spoken out against assisted suicide, calling it “false compassion.”

Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez has said that assisted suicide “represents a failure of solidarity” and abandons the most vulnerable in society.

Packer agrees. “We are called as people to support each other, to hold each other’s hand and walk through this journey,” she says. “I want my kids to see that dying is a part of life, and the end of your life can be an opportunity to appreciate the things you didn’t appreciate before.”

Packer, who leads support groups for individuals with terminal and chronic illnesses, says the passage of the California law had a very negative impact on the people she supports.

“Normally, we would talk about support and love, and we would be there for each other, and just encourage them that, you know, today is a bad day, tomorrow doesn’t have to be,” she said.

But after the bill passed, individuals became depressed with some saying they wanted to end their lives.

“Patients are going to die because of this,” Packer said. “Patients need to know what this means, and the public needs to know that it’s going to kill these patients because they aren’t going to get the treatment they need to extend their life.”

Even though proponents of assisted suicide like to paint a “pretty” picture about what they’re advocating, “It makes terminally ill patients feel ‘less than,’ that they are not worthy of that fight, that they're not worth it,” she said.

The other option, which is quality palliative care, is also expensive, which is why Packer advocates for contributing more energy and resources to fund hospice care instead of making death the cheaper option.

“We can start to fix our broken health care system,” she said, “and people will start to live instead of feeling like they have to choose to die.”