Talking Catholic Medical Ethics with Dr. Mark Rollo

WQPH, our local EWTN affiliate, will host MCFL board member, Dr. Mark Rollo, speaking about life issues on a unique and brand-new radio show / podcast for the remainder of the year!

In the first episode, Dr. Rollo addresses the "R.O.E." Act, medical ethics, and the physicians commitment to "first, do no harm."

EWTN was excited to announce this entirely new show in the WQPH lineup from a man of unique perspective and experience.

Dr. Rollo's show, “First, Do No Harm,” will continue throughout the year on Sundays at 11am and 11pm.

From EWTN's radio network:

WQPH: Can you tell us a little bit about your background as a doctor and how you came to the Faith?

Dr. Mark Rollo: I am a cradle Catholic.  Our Catholic Faith was central to our life as a family.  We were regular church goers and we six children attended Catholic schools for much of our education. My parents were staunchly pro-life.

My mother entered the fray to oppose abortion when Roe v Wade was decided in 1973.  Her pro-life beliefs were clearly made known to all of us well before 1973 but in that year she joined Massachusetts Citizens for Life and helped start a local crisis pregnancy center. She regularly picketed planned parenthood.

My father was a surgeon and was president of the medical staff when Roe became law.   As president he could not vote on whether or not to allow abortions to be done at our local hospital.  He resigned so that he could vote against it.

I belatedly followed in my father’s footsteps to become a physician when I was 30 years old. I joined the USAF to defray the cost of medical school and as an Air Force Physician I was very blessed to work with many dedicated and mission oriented individuals. My wife and I are Fitchburg natives and after separating from active duty in 1991 we returned to this area where I practiced family medicine until this year when I retired.

The show’s title is taken from the ancient Hippocratic oath for the medical profession. With so many scientific advancements today, how do you see such history informing us?

Over the years of my practice I have seen the abandonment of the Hippocratic Oath.  2500 years ago the Oath specifically rejected abortion and physician assisted suicide.  These abominations are currently corrupting medicine.  Contraception, which is the separation of love and life, helped usher in the culture of death which I gradually came to understand.  As a result I dedicated much of my practice to modern methods of natural family planning which is fully in accordance with the Catholic Church.

What are you hoping to help your listeners appreciate better?

Ethics must form the basis of treating the whole person and it is my hope to shine a light on the medical ethical issues of the day from a Catholic perspective.  This will include not only contraception, abortion and assisted suicide but also such important issues as IVF, hospice, palliative care and end of life decision making just to name a few.  I am looking forward to delving into these issues.

In the Netherlands, a woman who repeatedly told her MD not yet, was euthanized at that same doctor's orders. 

Dr. Arends, who had attended the woman from the beginning of her illness with dementia, said, "‘I believed that her suffering was truly awful and I knew that it could last for a long time,’

The woman, whose name was withheld in the interview Dr. Arends granted Dutch News, had signed a living will in which she requested that she be killed before she died naturally if the disease progressed "unbearably." However, she also stated that she required her medical team to secure verbal and written consent when the time came.

Neither Dr. Arends, nor anyone else, got that confirmation. In fact, as has been previously stated, she told them multiple times that she did not want to be euthanized. 

Arends was brought to court for her actions, but ultimately exonerated. In a bewilderingly bewildered statement, she reflected that she was stunned by the possibility of jail. ‘It is bizarre. ‘It’s the first time that I realized that an accusation of murder was even possible, in court. You see images of a jail cell before you. It has such a huge personal impact.’

She did not, however, comment on the huge personal impact of being dead, and more than that, killed without your consent by your own MD. Apparently, that fact was too bizarre to enter her mind. 

The most troubling aspect of the story is the statement made again and again by Arends that  she "knew best." Even to the point of adding a sedative to her patient's coffee so that the woman could not protest, Arends stands by her judgement as if she had a divine mandate to relieve another human being of pain -- and life. 

This is the brave new world of assisted suicide. If a human being has a right to request suicide, why isn't their right to accept suffering honored at the same level? And when a physician can substitute their will for yours, their judgment for yours, whose right is it anyway?

Please read on to inform yourself about the proposed doctor prescribed suicide law in Massachusetts (S.2745), which has just be voted favorably out of committee into Health Financing. (Updated as of: 17 June 2020)

Join MCFL now and make give voice to those with no voice by calling your legislator and asking them to oppose "An Act Relative to End of Life Options" (S.2745).

Use the main State House number and request your representative by giving your zip code:

617 722 2000

Access key facts about this anti-life bill here: Key Facts, S.2745

Read the Mass. Citizens for Life media advisory about S.2745 here.