Nuns Challenge NY Assisted Suicide Counseling Mandate

Last week, four Orders of Catholic Sisters along with the Catholic Diocese and Bishop of Rockville Centre, New York, filed suit in a New York federal district court challenging, at least as applied to them, the constitutionality of New York's Medical Aid in Dying Act as it interacts with the state's Palliative Care Information Act. Labelling these a "Suicide Counseling Mandate", the 102-page complaint (full text) in Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm, Inc. v. James, (ND NY, filed 7/17/2026) alleges in part:

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Canada Offers Assisted Suicide to Patient they Would Not Treat

Canada’s healthcare system used to be a source of pride for my country. It was regarded as one of the world’s best examples of a publicly-funded insurance system, free at the point of use, ranking highly for accessibility, care, compassion and the treatment of major and minor illnesses.

No longer. In 2024, the influential Commonwealth Fund survey placed Canada in seventh place out of ten developed countries, with a particularly poor score for access to care. In January, the Canada-based CD Howe Institute gave the country’s healthcare system an even gloomier diagnosis: it was placed ninth out of 10 countries, with all provinces and territories falling below the international average for overall healthcare performance.

Now the world has begun to notice. Story after story has emerged of patients failing to receive the treatment they require. But none is quite so chilling as that of Jolene Van Alstine.

Van Alstine, who lives in Regina, Saskatchewan, was diagnosed with a rare form of parathyroid disease eight years ago. She has dealt with many health-related problems, including abdominal pain and extreme bone pain and fractures. “It has been horrific,” she told reporters on Nov 25. “Every day I get up and I’m sick to my stomach and I throw up and I throw up. And then it takes me hours to cool off. I overheat. We have to turn the temperature down to 14 degrees when I get up in the morning.”

Her condition is treatable – said to involve complex surgery to remove her remaining parathyroid gland. But no doctors in Saskatchewan are able to perform it. Her case could have been moved on to a surgeon in a different Canadian province, but she needed to get a referral from an endocrinologist – and none of them are reportedly taking new patients.

This is where the story takes a truly sinister turn. Van Alistine sought approval for MAID, or medical assistance in dying. Worse, she was actually approved for medically-assisted suicide. Her husband, Miles Sundeen, told Global News that “she doesn’t want to die. She’s expressed that”, but he understands her position “after watching her suffer for this length of time”.

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Combatting military suicides: Limit access to private weapons?

With nearly half of all suicides in the military having been committed with privately owned firearms, the Pentagon and Congress are moving to establish policies intended to separate at-risk service members from their personal weapons.

The issue is a thorny one for the Pentagon, with gun-rights advocates and many service members fiercely opposing any policies that could be construed as limiting the private ownership of firearms.

But with suicides continuing to rise this year, senior Defense Department officials are developing a suicide prevention campaign that will encourage friends and families of potentially suicidal service members to safely store or voluntarily remove personal firearms from their homes.

“This is not about authoritarian regulation,” Dr. Jonathan Woodson, the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, said in an interview. “It is about the spouse understanding warning signs and, if there are firearms in the home, responsibly separating the individual at risk from the firearm.”

Rea the rest here.

FOX News broadcasts suicide live

Yep. I just saw it by accident (was changing channels and landed there just in time to see the end). If you missed it a man was apparently in a high speed chase running from police (you just have to broadcast that, right?), and he bailed from his car ran a ways then pulled a gun and shot himself in the head on live national TV. Score another point for our voyeuristic society and the anything for ratings mentality on the news.

Darwin Award Wannabe

NEW YORK -- A man jumped out of the Bronx Zoo's monorail into the tiger exhibit Friday afternoon, where he was badly mauled by one of the big cats before zoo employees rescued him using fire extinguishers, zoo officials said.

The man, believed to be around 25, severely injured his leg and foot in the attack, which happened just before 3:30 p.m., sources tell NBC 4 New York. He also has deep cuts to the back.

Once the tiger backed away, the man was instructed to roll under a hot wire to safety, said Bronx Zoo Director Jim Breheny in a statement. The keepers then called the tiger into its exhibit holding area and secured him there, Breheny said.

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Suicide by tiger. That's unusual even for New York.

Police: Shooting death of handcuffed man was suicide

A man's death from a gunshot wound to the head while his hands were handcuffed behind him in an Arkansas police patrol car has been ruled a suicide, The Associated Press reported on Monday.

The AP said the state crime lab report said 21-year-old Chavis Carter shot himself in the right temple of his head with a gun he had hidden. The report was based on autopsy findings and an investigation by the Jonesboro, Ark., Police Department.

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In other news they are reportedly selling beach front property in Oklahoma.

The Homily From Aaron Kimel's Funeral

Read it here. Warning, have the tissue box close at hand.

HT: Blog reader Dave B.

One of those days

Ever have one of those days where nothing goes quite right? A man threatens to commit suicide. The police, always helpful, fire 33 rounds at him. Of the 33 shots discharged, only four or five hit. No more donuts for you. And as of last word, the poor man is still alive.

Read the story here.

Wave of suicides have Greeks on edge

(Reuters) - On Monday, a 38-year-old geology lecturer hanged himself from a lamp post in Athens and on the same day a 35-year-old priest jumped to his death off his balcony in northern Greece. On Wednesday, a 23-year-old student shot himself in the head.

In a country that has had one of the lowest suicide rates in the world, a surge in the number of suicides in the wake of an economic crisis has shocked and gripped the Mediterranean nation - and its media - before a May 6 election.

The especially grisly death of pharmacist Dimitris Christoulas, who shot himself in the head on a central Athens square because of poverty brought on by the crisis that has put millions out of work, was by far the most dramatic.

Before shooting himself during morning rush hour on April 4 on Syntagma Square across from the Greek parliament building, the 77-year-old pensioner took a moment to jot down a note.

"I see no other solution than this dignified end to my life so I don't find myself fishing through garbage cans for sustenance," wrote Christoulas, who has since become a national symbol of the austerity-induced pain that is squeezing millions.

Read the rest here.
HT: T-19

This is why austerity will fail. It is not politically sustainable. No combination of higher taxes and austerity will save them (or us). In the end Greece will default. I am frankly surprised they haven't already done so.  The US is a different situation.  Our debt is denominated in our own currency so there is no question of overt default. We will continue to monetize the debt and print our way out of the hole.

The Tragedy of Suicide

The Standing Conference of the Canonical Orthodox Bishops in the Americas (SCOBA) has issued a pastoral letter on the subject of suicide which I found to be really good. This is of course an extremely difficult and emotional topic for many people. It is also not as black and white as some have tended to believe. SCOBA's letter reflects the importance of understanding the mental and spiritual health of suicide victims while reaffirming the traditional Christian condemnation of the act.

The traditional practice of the Orthodox Church is to refuse a funeral and burial in consecrated ground to suicides. However, even the Fathers understood there were sometimes mitigating circumstances which call the Church to forbear and leave judgment to God. As pastoral council I believe this letter is one of the better ones to come out of SCOBA in a while. As a side note it also corresponds rather closely to my understanding of the Roman Catholic position on the subject. I commend the letter to the reader in its entirety.