The state House Committee on Health’s recent decision to defer the bill on assisted suicide shows how good medical practices combined with sound moral reasoning can help to protect Hawaii’s people, including the most vulnerable in our state (“Bill to let dying patients take own lives is deferred,” Star-Advertiser, March 24).

Hawai‘i Catholic Conference and Hawai‘i Family Forum have been accused in the past of imposing our religious beliefs or moral values on the state. These same claims resurfaced in this current legislative session when we weighed in on assisted suicide.

We know interjecting a moral dimension into the public conversation is often summarily dismissed because it is not politically correct to do so. However, on the issue of assisted suicide, in which patient safety is at stake, we believe ethical values that uphold the dignity of all individuals must be a critical consideration in these discussions.

Our intention never is to polarize the community. For assisted suicide, we feel it is important that legislators and the community have accurate information to ensure laws are fair to all, including those who are often rendered voiceless, such as elders and those with disabilities.

Ultimately, value-based decisions have to be made, choosing between a radical definition of patient-centered care and autonomy and the need for patient safeguards to protect all patients.

In the recent hearing on the issue, led by state Rep. Della Au Belatti, chairwoman of the health committee, we saw the committee members raise serious concerns about “medical aid in dying,” challenging those representing both sides of the issue. They asked difficult but necessary questions. There were many unanswered or unsetting responses that led to their decision to defer the bill.

One of the concerns focused on abuse of medical aid in dying, potentially sending terminally ill kupuna and others to their grave before they are even ready.

We heard there have been no “documented” cases of abuse from Oregon where the Death with Dignity Act has been in effect since 1997. Legislators saw through the fallacious reasoning, since Oregon does not require any documentation of abuse, and in fact destroys all records approximately one year from the publication in Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act Annual Report.

Another concern focused on death certificates, which requires physicians to document the cause of death. For those who have ingested lethal drugs to terminate their lives, Hawaii’s proposed law would require physicians to document that the terminal disease was the cause of death on these patient’s death certificates, not medical aid in dying.

Fortunately, physicians with their moral compass intact shared that they are not comfortable with being coerced into this type of blatant misrepresentation.

In this legislative session, we also see clashing values on different bills.

For example, there are bills concerned about the alarming rate of suicide in our state — by some estimates as often as one suicide every two days in Hawaii — and a desire to reduce suicides in Hawaii. At the same time, we see those promoting assisted suicides, claiming it should not be called “suicides,” even though depression is frequently the common denominator in these unfortunate incidents.

We can expect proponents of assisted suicide to continue their agenda into the future.

Serving as a legislator can be tough. Legislators are frequently barraged with competing voices and perspec- tives on issues and it can be difficult to determine what is the “right” choice for the people of Hawaii.

Evidence-based models of care with good documentation can — and should continue to be — successfully integrated with values-based reasoning to ensure the best interests of Hawaii’s people are foremost in decisions on assisted suicide and other issues.

Walter Yoshimitsu is the executive director of Hawaii Catholic Conference. Eva Andrade is president of Hawaii Family Forum.