June 24, 2025 • 38 mins
Robert (Bob) Dunn is the Director of Public Policy for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Manchester, a role he began in August 2019. With a law degree from Georgetown University, Bob advocates for human dignity and educates New Hampshire Catholics on public policy. Previously, he spent 19 years at Devine Millimet, representing clients like the diocese and Catholic Medical Center, and served as Assistant Commissioner at the New Hampshire Department of Safety. A parishioner at St. Jude in Londonderry, he lives there with his wife, Jean, and teaches at UNH Law School. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Manchester’s website is catholicnh.org, with updates shared on Facebook at facebook.com/DioceseofManchester.
Thank you for watching The Ever-Living Podcast, a heartfelt space to share the stories and voices of women who champion a culture that values and protects life. Each episode we seek to empower, offering connection, hope, and strength through the journeys of those who work and pray for this cause. Crafted for women seeking purpose and community, we welcome you to join us in cherishing every single heartbeat.
Thank you for watching The Ever-Living Podcast, a heartfelt space to share the stories and voices of women who champion a culture that values and protects life. Each episode we seek to empower, offering connection, hope, and strength through the journeys of those who work and pray for this cause. Crafted for women seeking purpose and community, we welcome you to join us in cherishing every single heartbeat.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome to ever Living, a podcast about valuing life here
on Earth and for eternity. We are your life loving
hosts today, Cindy and Jason. Every week on ever Living,
we create a space for sharing the stories and voices
of those who work in prey to create a culture
that values and protects life here in New England and beyond.
(00:29):
Welcome to ever Living.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Welcome Jason, Well, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Yeah, thanks for filling in for Jessica this week. For
those of you who don't know, Jason and I are
married and this is our home. So are you excited
to be here this week? Jason?
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Always excited to have a wonderful conversation with my lovely wife.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Okay, awesome. We also have a fantastic guest today. His
name is Bob Dunn. He is the director of I
had his info right here.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
So Bob is the lobbyist for the Diocese of Manchester.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Director of Public Policy for the Diocese of Manchester, the
Catholic Church in New Hampshire.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Welcome Bob, Hey, thanks very much, I appreciate the invite.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Yeah, thanks for joining us today. So tell us what
do you do in your role as director of public Policy?
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Bob well, it's really twofold. I'd say primarily I am,
as Jason said, the lobbyist for the diocese. So I
go up to conquer it and participate in legislative discussions
around pieces of legislation that are important from a Catholic
(01:45):
social teaching perspective. And I also do educational work formation
to try to expose Catholics and to urge Catholics to
become active in the public square and to see the
work in the public square as an essential part of
(02:06):
their baptismal mission as Catholics.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Awesome, So what are some of the policies that you
focus on.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Catholic social teaching has four fundamental pillars human dignity, the
common good, solidarity, and subsidiarity. And so because we're an
incarnational church, there's almost nothing under the sun that we
might not potentially be interested in. And that means that
there needs to be some sort of triage done in
(02:42):
going through the one thousand bills and trying to decide
what we're going to do and how we can best
contribute to the discussions that are going on. Typically that
will result in a pretty wide ranging, cross political party
(03:03):
type of engagement. So we are out there obviously opposing abortion,
we oppose assisted suicide. We support medicaid funding. We especially
support medicaid funding for moms in need. We support the
(03:23):
rights of immigrants. We oppose things like right to work
because there's a fundamental strain of Catholic teaching that supports workers.
We are very much opposed to human trafficking, so we
try to help on that front as well a very
(03:45):
broad range of things that we might participate in in
any given legislative session.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Great, can you share more about the political parties working
together on bills, like for the assisted suicide? What was
that bill?
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Yeah, so could you talk a little bit about the
assisted suicide and trying why can you first talk a
little bit about what assisted suicide and how did you
arrive at your like what influenced you to be to
take your position and what that what that bill was
trying to do.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
Yeah, Well, in New Hampshire, as has been the case
around the world, really there was an attempt this year,
as there was last year and there have been previously
on a number of occasions, attempts to legalize the practice
of physician assisted suicide, and that typically takes the form
(04:52):
as it did here in New Hampshire of a proposal
that a person who has a a certain amount of
time left to live due to a terminal illness, let's
say it's six months, as it was in the New
Hampshire legislation, that that person can get a prescription from
a doctor to end their own life. And we opposed
(05:18):
it on a number of levels, but I think most
broadly and most fundamentally, because if you legalize the act
of suicide and you decide that certain quality of life
is worthy of death at bottom, then you're opening a
(05:44):
door that is incredibly dangerous. I can't think of many
other pieces of legislation that have such perilous implications for
the society, because now we're turning the doctor from a
healer into a killer. Now we are doing things like
(06:08):
and this is really one of the fundamental aspects of
the rhetoric that comes from folks that support assisted suicide,
that this is not suicide, right, It's called, as it
is in this legislation, medical aid and dying, and so
(06:30):
it tries to escape the reality of the situation. And
so Cindy, you referred to this, I think in your question,
But there are a lot of people involved in the
opposition to this that came from a host of different
organizations and backgrounds. This was not a religious issue. I mean,
(06:52):
we're not, as the Catholic Church in New Hampshire, we're
not opposing assisted suicide because suicide is something that it
is the Catholic Church considers to be wrong. I don't
know of anyone out there that considers suicide to be
something which is a moral act. Right. We try to
(07:15):
encourage people not to commit suicide. And so the reason
that one of the reasons that it's so obvious to
me that this is such a dangerous proposal is because
you've got veterans, you've got folks with disabilities, you've got
(07:38):
high school students, you've got nursing home administrators, just a
wide range of people that are coming in and saying
that this is going to have a negative impact on
all sorts of folks that aren't the ones who are
wanting to end their own lives under this law. And
(08:00):
that's to me one of the fundamental fallacies of the
arguments that are being made in favor of assisted suicide
that this is you know the word assisted right or
aid and dying. It proves that there's somebody else involved
in this. This isn't just an issue of individual autonomy.
(08:24):
That's one of the arguments that you hear made. This
is something where people, I mean because people obviously, you know,
if somebody is going to end their own life, there's
no one that can stop that from happening. We try
to help that not to happen. But you know, ultimately
(08:46):
that's an individual making a decision and taking an action.
What the proponents of this bill are trying to do
is to get the state to bless that action. And
once the state blesses that action, now all sorts of
other things come into play. Young people, suicide contagion, right,
(09:10):
which we know is true. What message is the state
sending to young people when the state says that suicide
is never an option except in the following circumstances, Because
that's really what the declaration that's being made by passing
(09:31):
an assisted suicide side law would be. What sort of
a message does it send to veterans with PTSD that
we know have higher rates of suicide than the general population.
What sort of a message does it send to old people?
Folks in nursing homes already feel like they're a burden.
(09:52):
And now this legislation would put into the minds of
I think basically every body in a nursing home in
New Hampshire who already feels that they're a burden on
other people. And I've heard this from nursing home administrators.
I'm not just surmising this. So now you pass a
(10:14):
bill like this, and you put into the brains of
every person in a nursing home in New Hampshire, should
I do this because I don't want to be a burden?
And by the way, we know from experience in Oregon,
for instance, that the reason that the top reason that
(10:38):
people give, the top reasons that people give in Oregon
for taking their own lives under this law have nothing
to do with the often advanced point that they're afraid
of People are afraid of intractable pain. You know, we
keep hearing that right from the proponents of the bill.
(11:01):
That's not why people are taking their own lives in
the assisted suicide law, under the assisted suicide law in Oregon,
They're doing it because they don't want to be a burden.
And so we're opening an incredibly dangerous door that would
have all sorts of implications down the Road. So that's
(11:26):
why it was I think to me one of the
most important things that we could do as the church
in New Hampshire to stand up for human dignity. The
same reasons that we support immigrants, the same reason that
we support the poor, the same reason that we do
(11:47):
everything else that we do, is why we opposed assisted suicide.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
I think that yeah, And I think one of the
things we've seen in other areas, for instance, like abortion,
once you have something legalized, now you have now you
have organizations that are profiting from that, and now there's
a Now you have a lobby, and once you have
that lobby, then they're always going to be pushing those boundaries.
For instance, just last week at a conference, I was
(12:14):
talking to somebody who works against assisted suicide in Canada
and she was telling me that up there they've been
pushing for mental health as a reason and trying to
and trying to even move move the age down to
like I think twelve or thirteen or something like that.
(12:35):
And so once you have this, once you open this door,
it's not it's not just where it is right now.
What they propose, which is six months, you know, you
have to have a six month a diagnosis that you
won't be living past that. But you know, they there's
always going to now once you have that lobby, once
you have doctors who are profiting from that, you're going
(12:57):
to have there's going to be a push.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Yeah, And you know you raise the abortion issue, Jason,
and I think there's another similarity there in the affirmative
attempt to try to change language, to change terminology, and
so to not refer to abortion as abortion, right, to
(13:25):
not refer to the unborn child as a human being right.
It's the same thing is going on where the under
assisted suicide proposals, you don't ever see the word suicide appear,
or at least the you know, the way suicide appears
(13:48):
in the New Hampshire proposals is not because that It's
not because the proposal refers to this as assisted suicide.
It's because the proposal necessarily has to repeal the law
that right now prohibits somebody from assisting in another's suicide.
(14:13):
And so it's this unwillingness to face up to the
reality of the situation and to try to use words
that skirt the issue that to me is a real
fundamental problem wherever it arises I mean, we see it
(14:35):
clearly in abortion or an assistant suicide, but we need
in the public square, I think, to be direct about
what it is that's going on in any particular legislative proposal,
to be honest about it, and then to be willing
to have a civil discussion and debate that is based
(14:59):
around that proof of the matter. And we we shouldn't
be using this kind of evasive, euphemistic approach to how
we uh we craft our legislative vocabularies.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
And it's it's the finality of physician assists a suicide
that once the person has has passed, they can't reverse
that decision not to do it. And you know that
it can devastate their family knowing this is going to
(15:43):
happen and then grieving them after their death.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Yeah, absolutely, Cindy, that is an excellent point. And the
there's a coercive nature to this, right, You're going to
have some doctors that are going to be sort of
suggesting this to people. And you know how folks are.
(16:12):
We're all very attentive to what our doctors tell us.
So if you have a doctor that is suggesting this
to a patient that is not you know, intended to
be coercive, but it's inherently coercive in that it is
(16:33):
saying that this might be something that you should consider doing.
You might even have some that go beyond that. Right
in our being coercive, there's coercion just in the fact
that the state is calling this death with dignity. You
know that this is the dignified way to die. So
(16:53):
there's inherent coercion just in the fit, in the fact
that the state would be putting its blessing onto this action.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Yeah, the days of our lives ought to be in
God's hands, not in the hands of men.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
I would see it. You know. We we have we
have a book that we publish and I encourage anybody
to take a look at it if they're interested in
what the Catholic Church teaches about end of life decisions.
But it's called Three Beliefs and it's available on our
Catholic Andage dot org website. But one of the things
(17:39):
that we talk about in Three Beliefs is the idea
of grace filled moments in the dying. And I will
say just within the past two years now, I've lost
my father and my brother after illnesses and one long
(18:04):
and one short, but it was incredibly difficult, the process
of dying, But I think it was incredibly grace filled also,
And we're not conditioned, as modern Americans, I think, to
think about dying as an area where there might be
(18:30):
grace available in that there might It's the sort of
thing that I think people are walking away from without
realizing that there is a lot of profound moments that
might occur if just in the course of a loved
(18:54):
one dying, there were moments of reconciliation, there were moments
of love. The idea that we would try to skirt
away from the one of the most elemental things that
a human being does right, or that we can participate
in with other human beings around. It's just it's part of,
(19:20):
I think, in some respects what we see with AI right.
It's the ascendency of technocracy, the desire to control things,
and I think that that that can be a diminishment
of human dignity, and it's it's one of the reasons
(19:45):
why I think we need to be so attentive to
putting up a blockade against anything that's going to diminish
human dignity in any way, shape or form. So it's
you know, Look, it's not easy, and I in no
(20:06):
way want to cast any judgment on anybody, you know,
as far as what their circumstances are. It is hugely difficult.
But the fact of the matter is that if you
pass a law like this, it's going to have negative
(20:26):
impacts on all sorts of other people that aren't choosing
to end their lives under this law. And that's why
I think we have to be so worried about it,
or at least, if not worried, you know, pull out
all the stops and trying to make sure that it
doesn't happen.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
And I think you hit on one thing there, Bob
was I know, I know for when we were I'm
sure you remember the fatal fetal anomalies discussion we had
in New Hampshire couple of years ago with the Fetal
Life Protection Act, And one of the things that came
out from the FDA right right at the same time
was that a lot of those tests are actually they're
(21:08):
not considered, they're not diagnostic, they're screening, and so they
actually have they're actually a significant number of false positives
and and so there's a lot and there's a lot
of we heard testimony that a lot of mothers as
soon as as soon as they one of those tests
comes back and says, oh, your child has Down syndrome
or something like that, then they're told, when can we
(21:30):
schedule your abortion for you?
Speaker 3 (21:32):
Right?
Speaker 2 (21:33):
And and and so I think in this case, in
the in the assistant suicide case, I think that's very similar.
You know, my stepfather, for instance, who passed away I
think two years ago now.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Think around the same time as Yea.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Yeah, he was told I think he was put on
hospice for like two years. You know, he was sold
several times that he wasn't going to survive, you know,
more than a few months, and he, Praise be to God,
he did and we got to enjoy his company for that.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
But then your mom really showed care for him.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Yeah, and it really, I mean my family it affected
us in like seeing seeing just the love. It was
just it was beautiful. How you know, sometimes in those
hardest situations you see some of the different side of people.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
Yeah, Jason, your your your reference to kind of those
decisions that are being made around Down syndrome. I think
that is spot on here because it implicates the question
of who decides right the when we were you and
(22:45):
I were testifying an opposition to that fetal Anomalies incompatible
with Life amendment, I think is how it was written
in the in the bill. And and I don't know
if you remember this colloquy, but one of the senators,
when I raised the Down syndrome issue, the senator said, well,
(23:10):
surely you don't think that Down syndrome is a fetal
anomaly incompatible with life. And I certainly don't. But the
issue is, as I pointed out to the Senate that day,
is that there are clearly people out there who do.
(23:31):
There's you know, pre presumably pretty much every doctor in
Iceland would believe that. So when we pass a law
that puts into the hands of fallible human beings the
question of deciding what is compatible with life and what
isn't you know something that maybe that might not mean
(23:57):
that it's incompatible with life. It doesn't mean that it's fatal, right,
it's incompatible with life, whatever the heck that means. And
there are clearly some doctors in other parts of the
world that would see something like Don syndrome as being
(24:17):
incompatible with life. We know that that's happening out there,
So We don't want to put those sorts of decisions
into the hands of people who might have a different
view of what is incompatible with life, or what is
compatible with life, or what is a good quality of
(24:38):
life that is. I think history shows us the danger
of going down that road.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
Yeah, And I think I think anytime where some where
a person gets to decide who is a person and
which rights do that does that person get? I think
anytime you have that, then bad things happen. You know,
history is full of examples of people saying, oh that, well,
that class of people they don't get the rights, or
you know, those people aren't even people their property instance.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
You know, we we have this. I think there's and
this is true. I mean, I'm I'm not saying this
of any other people. I think we're all probably guilty
of it to one degree of another. But we we
always feel like, well, that can't happen here. And and
I just marvel at that because history shows us how
(25:35):
much we keep screwing things up and repeating the errors
of the past. You know, we we had in uh
you may remember the the Buck v. Bell decision from
the US Supreme Court, the infamous decision We're in Alliver
(25:58):
Wendell Holmes, writing for the court upheld where the Court
upheld the Virginia forcible sterilization program.
Speaker 4 (26:10):
And.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
Holmes wrote the infamous and notorious words, three generations of
imbeciles are enough. And so that was an era when
the eugenics movement was in its ascendency in this country,
and it became the model for what the Nazis did
(26:36):
with their eugenics and euthanasia programs. And you know, we
recoil at that today. But I don't know how many
folks here in New Hampshire know that New Hampshire had
an almost identical sort of law here. It wasn't just Virginia,
(26:59):
it is New Hampshire, and I think many other, if
not a majority of other states had one. And so, uh,
things can happen here. We we're not We're not living
in some sort of a miraculous bubble here in New Hampshire. Uh.
And so I think we need to have a sense
(27:22):
of humility that that we have to look at what
their what history teaches us regarding all of the good
and the bad that could arise from actions that we take.
Mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
And do you think about New Hampshire's neighbors and how
their laws could like their how their laws could affect us,
not affect us. Thinking of Vermont, Maine.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
Massachusetts, absolutely that is a consideration, Cindy, But we also
don't have a motorcycle helmet law, or a seat belt law,
or an income tax, so those sorts of things kind
of run in a variety of directions. We in some respects,
(28:22):
I think, being the one state that is, we're willing
to do things that nobody else is doing. And I
feel that and I think experience shows us here over
the last couple of years that even though Maine in
Vermont do have assisted suicide laws in place, we end
(28:48):
obviously Canada does to our north. So but that hasn't
impacted what has happened here. And if anything, I'm hopeful
that we have learned and will continue to learn from
all of the bad things that are happening in those
surrounding states. And and Jason, you pointed out Canada. Canada
(29:12):
is the poster child for all of the bad things
that can happen when you have assisted suicide in place.
It's now I think the fifth leading cause of death
in wo and in parts of if not all of Canada,
just in that the few years that that it has
(29:36):
been in place. So again, no, the opponents of this
are not making it all up right. Uh, it's it's happening.
So the idea that it can't happen here, well, I
I beg to differ.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
Well, that's let's keep working too to value and protect
every life in New Hampshire. And yeah, continue doing that.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
And I can just throw in I know we're running
towards the end of our time, but since we've got
such a great mind here, Bob, I just wanted to
throw this question out from your unique vantage point. What
strategies would you recommend for the pro life movement in
New Hampshire.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
It could be.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Specifically for fostering respect for preborn children, It could be policy,
could be messaging.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Like helping helping families.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Helping families, like what what do you think should be
something that we should be doing.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
I guess I'd say three things, and I'd start off
with what Cindy just said, because we need to make
sure that we don't automatically default to the political sole
as being the solution. The work of the crisis pregnancy centers,
(31:08):
you know, anything that's happening to actually assist mothers and
their babies. What the US Conference of Catholic Bishops for
first was radical solidarity with moms and children. That is
a message that is calculated not only to be a
(31:31):
good thing on its own, but it sends the message
that is likely to be able to change hearts and minds.
And that's the key here, especially in a state like
New Hampshire. We have to change hearts and minds, So
that is number one. Number two, I think that we
(31:52):
need to be cognizant of the fact that in the
way that we conduct ourselves we have to be civil
and respectful and engage in dialogue because we're not going
to You can't convince somebody of a proposition by punching
(32:13):
them in the nose, and we have to be We
have to think of where people are at. We have
to meet them where they're at and be charitable towards
them and empathetic towards them and try to bring them
(32:33):
over to our side or our perspective on this issue.
And that's the only way that's going to work right
because we're not otherwise, we're not going to end up
prevailing on this. And thirdly, this gets back to what
I was saying at the beginning about the broadness of
(32:57):
Catholic social teaching, is that I think we need to
draw correspondences between the issue of abortion and other things
like immigration, because those two issues resound in different ways
in different aspects of the political spectrum, but at root,
(33:19):
they are both human dignity issues, and so we need
to make sure that folks who are in favor of
abortion understand how that perspective impacts the issue of immigration
and vice versa, so that we are always adhering to principles,
(33:43):
whether or not that principle might lead us to be
working with Republicans or with Democrats on other types of issues.
So we need to be able to show, as I
try to argue all the time, that the that if
we want to if we want society to uphold the
(34:09):
human dignity of one child, the child in the womb,
then we need to also have society uphold the human
dignity of the child at the border, or the child
who's homeless, or the child who's poor. And so by
(34:31):
drawing those correspondences across political lines, I think that stands
to break the log jam in the debate and to focus,
get the focus back on what the primary principle is
and how it works, because there is an incongruity there
(34:51):
that I think political platforms are political platforms by the
nature transaction at all, right, they're you know, Catholic something
that Catholic social teaching is a broad, universal type of
philosophy in a way that a political platform is not
(35:12):
intended to be. And so I think that we can
bring get back to those principles and make sure that
we're we're we're following those principles wherever they may take
us politically.
Speaker 4 (35:31):
Right, and to value that the child at all ages
before birth as ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy
their whole life.
Speaker 3 (35:43):
So exactly, exactly, Yeah, you just said in ten seconds
what I took about half an.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Hourst Although there's some there's some there's some debates to
be had about, you know, how do we how do
we how do we help, how do we bring us stance?
And which methods to use?
Speaker 3 (36:02):
And I think that's absolutely discussion. Yes, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
Well we're reaching the end of our episode today. Thank you, Bob.
Do you have a life valuing Bible verse you'd like
to share with our listeners.
Speaker 3 (36:19):
Absolutely absolutely. The one that I keep coming back to,
the one that I've actually had the honor of reading
at the funeral masses of my father and my brother
from it comes from Romans eight. What can separate us
from the love of God? Nothing, not even death itself,
(36:42):
can separate us from the love of God shown us
in Christ Jesus the Lord.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
Wow, that's that's that's pretty deep.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
Can I read it in it? It's an entirety, Bob,
Absolutely yes, Romans eight thirty eight. For I am sure
that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor
things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height,
nor death, nor anything else in all creation will be
(37:17):
able to separate us from the Love of God in
Christ Jesus Our Lord.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Amen. Amen.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
Well, thank you so much for joining us, Bob, and
thank you for all the work that you do to
protect life in New Hampshire and beyond. You really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
God bless you, No, thank you, Thank you for the invite,
thank you for all the work that you all do.
Well here.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
We appreciate seeing you and look forward to working with
you in the DJA.
Speaker 3 (37:46):
Absolutely take care all right, Hi, heyjee bye.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
Everyone, See you next week.
Speaker 5 (37:52):
Thank you for listening to the Ever Living Podcast. If
you have scripture questions or things you'd like to share,
please feel free to email set ever livingpodat gmail dot com.
Also make sure to follow us on Instagram at ever
dot living podcast. And if you like this podcast, please
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(38:13):
give us a five star review.
Speaker 3 (38:15):
See you next week.
Speaker 5 (38:16):
May God bless you and be very near to you,
and may you be ever living
Welcome to ever Living, a podcast about valuing life here
on Earth and for eternity. We are your life loving
hosts today, Cindy and Jason. Every week on ever Living,
we create a space for sharing the stories and voices
of those who work in prey to create a culture
that values and protects life here in New England and beyond.
(00:29):
Welcome to ever Living.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Welcome Jason, Well, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Yeah, thanks for filling in for Jessica this week. For
those of you who don't know, Jason and I are
married and this is our home. So are you excited
to be here this week? Jason?
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Always excited to have a wonderful conversation with my lovely wife.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Okay, awesome. We also have a fantastic guest today. His
name is Bob Dunn. He is the director of I
had his info right here.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
So Bob is the lobbyist for the Diocese of Manchester.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Director of Public Policy for the Diocese of Manchester, the
Catholic Church in New Hampshire.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Welcome Bob, Hey, thanks very much, I appreciate the invite.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Yeah, thanks for joining us today. So tell us what
do you do in your role as director of public Policy?
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Bob well, it's really twofold. I'd say primarily I am,
as Jason said, the lobbyist for the diocese. So I
go up to conquer it and participate in legislative discussions
around pieces of legislation that are important from a Catholic
(01:45):
social teaching perspective. And I also do educational work formation
to try to expose Catholics and to urge Catholics to
become active in the public square and to see the
work in the public square as an essential part of
(02:06):
their baptismal mission as Catholics.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Awesome, So what are some of the policies that you
focus on.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Catholic social teaching has four fundamental pillars human dignity, the
common good, solidarity, and subsidiarity. And so because we're an
incarnational church, there's almost nothing under the sun that we
might not potentially be interested in. And that means that
there needs to be some sort of triage done in
(02:42):
going through the one thousand bills and trying to decide
what we're going to do and how we can best
contribute to the discussions that are going on. Typically that
will result in a pretty wide ranging, cross political party
(03:03):
type of engagement. So we are out there obviously opposing abortion,
we oppose assisted suicide. We support medicaid funding. We especially
support medicaid funding for moms in need. We support the
(03:23):
rights of immigrants. We oppose things like right to work
because there's a fundamental strain of Catholic teaching that supports workers.
We are very much opposed to human trafficking, so we
try to help on that front as well a very
(03:45):
broad range of things that we might participate in in
any given legislative session.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Great, can you share more about the political parties working
together on bills, like for the assisted suicide? What was
that bill?
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Yeah, so could you talk a little bit about the
assisted suicide and trying why can you first talk a
little bit about what assisted suicide and how did you
arrive at your like what influenced you to be to
take your position and what that what that bill was
trying to do.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
Yeah, Well, in New Hampshire, as has been the case
around the world, really there was an attempt this year,
as there was last year and there have been previously
on a number of occasions, attempts to legalize the practice
of physician assisted suicide, and that typically takes the form
(04:52):
as it did here in New Hampshire of a proposal
that a person who has a a certain amount of
time left to live due to a terminal illness, let's
say it's six months, as it was in the New
Hampshire legislation, that that person can get a prescription from
a doctor to end their own life. And we opposed
(05:18):
it on a number of levels, but I think most
broadly and most fundamentally, because if you legalize the act
of suicide and you decide that certain quality of life
is worthy of death at bottom, then you're opening a
(05:44):
door that is incredibly dangerous. I can't think of many
other pieces of legislation that have such perilous implications for
the society, because now we're turning the doctor from a
healer into a killer. Now we are doing things like
(06:08):
and this is really one of the fundamental aspects of
the rhetoric that comes from folks that support assisted suicide,
that this is not suicide, right, It's called, as it
is in this legislation, medical aid and dying, and so
(06:30):
it tries to escape the reality of the situation. And
so Cindy, you referred to this, I think in your question,
But there are a lot of people involved in the
opposition to this that came from a host of different
organizations and backgrounds. This was not a religious issue. I mean,
(06:52):
we're not, as the Catholic Church in New Hampshire, we're
not opposing assisted suicide because suicide is something that it
is the Catholic Church considers to be wrong. I don't
know of anyone out there that considers suicide to be
something which is a moral act. Right. We try to
(07:15):
encourage people not to commit suicide. And so the reason
that one of the reasons that it's so obvious to
me that this is such a dangerous proposal is because
you've got veterans, you've got folks with disabilities, you've got
(07:38):
high school students, you've got nursing home administrators, just a
wide range of people that are coming in and saying
that this is going to have a negative impact on
all sorts of folks that aren't the ones who are
wanting to end their own lives under this law. And
(08:00):
that's to me one of the fundamental fallacies of the
arguments that are being made in favor of assisted suicide
that this is you know the word assisted right or
aid and dying. It proves that there's somebody else involved
in this. This isn't just an issue of individual autonomy.
(08:24):
That's one of the arguments that you hear made. This
is something where people, I mean because people obviously, you know,
if somebody is going to end their own life, there's
no one that can stop that from happening. We try
to help that not to happen. But you know, ultimately
(08:46):
that's an individual making a decision and taking an action.
What the proponents of this bill are trying to do
is to get the state to bless that action. And
once the state blesses that action, now all sorts of
other things come into play. Young people, suicide contagion, right,
(09:10):
which we know is true. What message is the state
sending to young people when the state says that suicide
is never an option except in the following circumstances, Because
that's really what the declaration that's being made by passing
(09:31):
an assisted suicide side law would be. What sort of
a message does it send to veterans with PTSD that
we know have higher rates of suicide than the general population.
What sort of a message does it send to old people?
Folks in nursing homes already feel like they're a burden.
(09:52):
And now this legislation would put into the minds of
I think basically every body in a nursing home in
New Hampshire who already feels that they're a burden on
other people. And I've heard this from nursing home administrators.
I'm not just surmising this. So now you pass a
(10:14):
bill like this, and you put into the brains of
every person in a nursing home in New Hampshire, should
I do this because I don't want to be a burden?
And by the way, we know from experience in Oregon,
for instance, that the reason that the top reason that
(10:38):
people give, the top reasons that people give in Oregon
for taking their own lives under this law have nothing
to do with the often advanced point that they're afraid
of People are afraid of intractable pain. You know, we
keep hearing that right from the proponents of the bill.
(11:01):
That's not why people are taking their own lives in
the assisted suicide law, under the assisted suicide law in Oregon,
They're doing it because they don't want to be a burden.
And so we're opening an incredibly dangerous door that would
have all sorts of implications down the Road. So that's
(11:26):
why it was I think to me one of the
most important things that we could do as the church
in New Hampshire to stand up for human dignity. The
same reasons that we support immigrants, the same reason that
we support the poor, the same reason that we do
(11:47):
everything else that we do, is why we opposed assisted suicide.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
I think that yeah, And I think one of the
things we've seen in other areas, for instance, like abortion,
once you have something legalized, now you have now you
have organizations that are profiting from that, and now there's
a Now you have a lobby, and once you have
that lobby, then they're always going to be pushing those boundaries.
For instance, just last week at a conference, I was
(12:14):
talking to somebody who works against assisted suicide in Canada
and she was telling me that up there they've been
pushing for mental health as a reason and trying to
and trying to even move move the age down to
like I think twelve or thirteen or something like that.
(12:35):
And so once you have this, once you open this door,
it's not it's not just where it is right now.
What they propose, which is six months, you know, you
have to have a six month a diagnosis that you
won't be living past that. But you know, they there's
always going to now once you have that lobby, once
you have doctors who are profiting from that, you're going
(12:57):
to have there's going to be a push.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Yeah, And you know you raise the abortion issue, Jason,
and I think there's another similarity there in the affirmative
attempt to try to change language, to change terminology, and
so to not refer to abortion as abortion, right, to
(13:25):
not refer to the unborn child as a human being right.
It's the same thing is going on where the under
assisted suicide proposals, you don't ever see the word suicide appear,
or at least the you know, the way suicide appears
(13:48):
in the New Hampshire proposals is not because that It's
not because the proposal refers to this as assisted suicide.
It's because the proposal necessarily has to repeal the law
that right now prohibits somebody from assisting in another's suicide.
(14:13):
And so it's this unwillingness to face up to the
reality of the situation and to try to use words
that skirt the issue that to me is a real
fundamental problem wherever it arises I mean, we see it
(14:35):
clearly in abortion or an assistant suicide, but we need
in the public square, I think, to be direct about
what it is that's going on in any particular legislative proposal,
to be honest about it, and then to be willing
to have a civil discussion and debate that is based
(14:59):
around that proof of the matter. And we we shouldn't
be using this kind of evasive, euphemistic approach to how
we uh we craft our legislative vocabularies.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
And it's it's the finality of physician assists a suicide
that once the person has has passed, they can't reverse
that decision not to do it. And you know that
it can devastate their family knowing this is going to
(15:43):
happen and then grieving them after their death.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Yeah, absolutely, Cindy, that is an excellent point. And the
there's a coercive nature to this, right, You're going to
have some doctors that are going to be sort of
suggesting this to people. And you know how folks are.
(16:12):
We're all very attentive to what our doctors tell us.
So if you have a doctor that is suggesting this
to a patient that is not you know, intended to
be coercive, but it's inherently coercive in that it is
(16:33):
saying that this might be something that you should consider doing.
You might even have some that go beyond that. Right
in our being coercive, there's coercion just in the fact
that the state is calling this death with dignity. You
know that this is the dignified way to die. So
(16:53):
there's inherent coercion just in the fit, in the fact
that the state would be putting its blessing onto this action.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Yeah, the days of our lives ought to be in
God's hands, not in the hands of men.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
I would see it. You know. We we have we
have a book that we publish and I encourage anybody
to take a look at it if they're interested in
what the Catholic Church teaches about end of life decisions.
But it's called Three Beliefs and it's available on our
Catholic Andage dot org website. But one of the things
(17:39):
that we talk about in Three Beliefs is the idea
of grace filled moments in the dying. And I will
say just within the past two years now, I've lost
my father and my brother after illnesses and one long
(18:04):
and one short, but it was incredibly difficult, the process
of dying, But I think it was incredibly grace filled also,
And we're not conditioned, as modern Americans, I think, to
think about dying as an area where there might be
(18:30):
grace available in that there might It's the sort of
thing that I think people are walking away from without
realizing that there is a lot of profound moments that
might occur if just in the course of a loved
(18:54):
one dying, there were moments of reconciliation, there were moments
of love. The idea that we would try to skirt
away from the one of the most elemental things that
a human being does right, or that we can participate
in with other human beings around. It's just it's part of,
(19:20):
I think, in some respects what we see with AI right.
It's the ascendency of technocracy, the desire to control things,
and I think that that that can be a diminishment
of human dignity, and it's it's one of the reasons
(19:45):
why I think we need to be so attentive to
putting up a blockade against anything that's going to diminish
human dignity in any way, shape or form. So it's
you know, Look, it's not easy, and I in no
(20:06):
way want to cast any judgment on anybody, you know,
as far as what their circumstances are. It is hugely difficult.
But the fact of the matter is that if you
pass a law like this, it's going to have negative
(20:26):
impacts on all sorts of other people that aren't choosing
to end their lives under this law. And that's why
I think we have to be so worried about it,
or at least, if not worried, you know, pull out
all the stops and trying to make sure that it
doesn't happen.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
And I think you hit on one thing there, Bob
was I know, I know for when we were I'm
sure you remember the fatal fetal anomalies discussion we had
in New Hampshire couple of years ago with the Fetal
Life Protection Act, And one of the things that came
out from the FDA right right at the same time
was that a lot of those tests are actually they're
(21:08):
not considered, they're not diagnostic, they're screening, and so they
actually have they're actually a significant number of false positives
and and so there's a lot and there's a lot
of we heard testimony that a lot of mothers as
soon as as soon as they one of those tests
comes back and says, oh, your child has Down syndrome
or something like that, then they're told, when can we
(21:30):
schedule your abortion for you?
Speaker 3 (21:32):
Right?
Speaker 2 (21:33):
And and and so I think in this case, in
the in the assistant suicide case, I think that's very similar.
You know, my stepfather, for instance, who passed away I
think two years ago now.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Think around the same time as Yea.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Yeah, he was told I think he was put on
hospice for like two years. You know, he was sold
several times that he wasn't going to survive, you know,
more than a few months, and he, Praise be to God,
he did and we got to enjoy his company for that.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
But then your mom really showed care for him.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Yeah, and it really, I mean my family it affected
us in like seeing seeing just the love. It was
just it was beautiful. How you know, sometimes in those
hardest situations you see some of the different side of people.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
Yeah, Jason, your your your reference to kind of those
decisions that are being made around Down syndrome. I think
that is spot on here because it implicates the question
of who decides right the when we were you and
(22:45):
I were testifying an opposition to that fetal Anomalies incompatible
with Life amendment, I think is how it was written
in the in the bill. And and I don't know
if you remember this colloquy, but one of the senators,
when I raised the Down syndrome issue, the senator said, well,
(23:10):
surely you don't think that Down syndrome is a fetal
anomaly incompatible with life. And I certainly don't. But the
issue is, as I pointed out to the Senate that day,
is that there are clearly people out there who do.
(23:31):
There's you know, pre presumably pretty much every doctor in
Iceland would believe that. So when we pass a law
that puts into the hands of fallible human beings the
question of deciding what is compatible with life and what
isn't you know something that maybe that might not mean
(23:57):
that it's incompatible with life. It doesn't mean that it's fatal, right,
it's incompatible with life, whatever the heck that means. And
there are clearly some doctors in other parts of the
world that would see something like Don syndrome as being
(24:17):
incompatible with life. We know that that's happening out there,
So We don't want to put those sorts of decisions
into the hands of people who might have a different
view of what is incompatible with life, or what is
compatible with life, or what is a good quality of
(24:38):
life that is. I think history shows us the danger
of going down that road.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
Yeah, And I think I think anytime where some where
a person gets to decide who is a person and
which rights do that does that person get? I think
anytime you have that, then bad things happen. You know,
history is full of examples of people saying, oh that, well,
that class of people they don't get the rights, or
you know, those people aren't even people their property instance.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
You know, we we have this. I think there's and
this is true. I mean, I'm I'm not saying this
of any other people. I think we're all probably guilty
of it to one degree of another. But we we
always feel like, well, that can't happen here. And and
I just marvel at that because history shows us how
(25:35):
much we keep screwing things up and repeating the errors
of the past. You know, we we had in uh
you may remember the the Buck v. Bell decision from
the US Supreme Court, the infamous decision We're in Alliver
(25:58):
Wendell Holmes, writing for the court upheld where the Court
upheld the Virginia forcible sterilization program.
Speaker 4 (26:10):
And.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
Holmes wrote the infamous and notorious words, three generations of
imbeciles are enough. And so that was an era when
the eugenics movement was in its ascendency in this country,
and it became the model for what the Nazis did
(26:36):
with their eugenics and euthanasia programs. And you know, we
recoil at that today. But I don't know how many
folks here in New Hampshire know that New Hampshire had
an almost identical sort of law here. It wasn't just Virginia,
(26:59):
it is New Hampshire, and I think many other, if
not a majority of other states had one. And so, uh,
things can happen here. We we're not We're not living
in some sort of a miraculous bubble here in New Hampshire. Uh.
And so I think we need to have a sense
(27:22):
of humility that that we have to look at what
their what history teaches us regarding all of the good
and the bad that could arise from actions that we take.
Mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
And do you think about New Hampshire's neighbors and how
their laws could like their how their laws could affect us,
not affect us. Thinking of Vermont, Maine.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
Massachusetts, absolutely that is a consideration, Cindy, But we also
don't have a motorcycle helmet law, or a seat belt law,
or an income tax, so those sorts of things kind
of run in a variety of directions. We in some respects,
(28:22):
I think, being the one state that is, we're willing
to do things that nobody else is doing. And I
feel that and I think experience shows us here over
the last couple of years that even though Maine in
Vermont do have assisted suicide laws in place, we end
(28:48):
obviously Canada does to our north. So but that hasn't
impacted what has happened here. And if anything, I'm hopeful
that we have learned and will continue to learn from
all of the bad things that are happening in those
surrounding states. And and Jason, you pointed out Canada. Canada
(29:12):
is the poster child for all of the bad things
that can happen when you have assisted suicide in place.
It's now I think the fifth leading cause of death
in wo and in parts of if not all of Canada,
just in that the few years that that it has
(29:36):
been in place. So again, no, the opponents of this
are not making it all up right. Uh, it's it's happening.
So the idea that it can't happen here, well, I
I beg to differ.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
Well, that's let's keep working too to value and protect
every life in New Hampshire. And yeah, continue doing that.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
And I can just throw in I know we're running
towards the end of our time, but since we've got
such a great mind here, Bob, I just wanted to
throw this question out from your unique vantage point. What
strategies would you recommend for the pro life movement in
New Hampshire.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
It could be.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Specifically for fostering respect for preborn children, It could be policy,
could be messaging.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Like helping helping families.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Helping families, like what what do you think should be
something that we should be doing.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
I guess I'd say three things, and I'd start off
with what Cindy just said, because we need to make
sure that we don't automatically default to the political sole
as being the solution. The work of the crisis pregnancy centers,
(31:08):
you know, anything that's happening to actually assist mothers and
their babies. What the US Conference of Catholic Bishops for
first was radical solidarity with moms and children. That is
a message that is calculated not only to be a
(31:31):
good thing on its own, but it sends the message
that is likely to be able to change hearts and minds.
And that's the key here, especially in a state like
New Hampshire. We have to change hearts and minds, So
that is number one. Number two, I think that we
(31:52):
need to be cognizant of the fact that in the
way that we conduct ourselves we have to be civil
and respectful and engage in dialogue because we're not going
to You can't convince somebody of a proposition by punching
(32:13):
them in the nose, and we have to be We
have to think of where people are at. We have
to meet them where they're at and be charitable towards
them and empathetic towards them and try to bring them
(32:33):
over to our side or our perspective on this issue.
And that's the only way that's going to work right
because we're not otherwise, we're not going to end up
prevailing on this. And thirdly, this gets back to what
I was saying at the beginning about the broadness of
(32:57):
Catholic social teaching, is that I think we need to
draw correspondences between the issue of abortion and other things
like immigration, because those two issues resound in different ways
in different aspects of the political spectrum, but at root,
(33:19):
they are both human dignity issues, and so we need
to make sure that folks who are in favor of
abortion understand how that perspective impacts the issue of immigration
and vice versa, so that we are always adhering to principles,
(33:43):
whether or not that principle might lead us to be
working with Republicans or with Democrats on other types of issues.
So we need to be able to show, as I
try to argue all the time, that the that if
we want to if we want society to uphold the
(34:09):
human dignity of one child, the child in the womb,
then we need to also have society uphold the human
dignity of the child at the border, or the child
who's homeless, or the child who's poor. And so by
(34:31):
drawing those correspondences across political lines, I think that stands
to break the log jam in the debate and to focus,
get the focus back on what the primary principle is
and how it works, because there is an incongruity there
(34:51):
that I think political platforms are political platforms by the
nature transaction at all, right, they're you know, Catholic something
that Catholic social teaching is a broad, universal type of
philosophy in a way that a political platform is not
(35:12):
intended to be. And so I think that we can
bring get back to those principles and make sure that
we're we're we're following those principles wherever they may take
us politically.
Speaker 4 (35:31):
Right, and to value that the child at all ages
before birth as ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy
their whole life.
Speaker 3 (35:43):
So exactly, exactly, Yeah, you just said in ten seconds
what I took about half an.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Hourst Although there's some there's some there's some debates to
be had about, you know, how do we how do
we how do we help, how do we bring us stance?
And which methods to use?
Speaker 3 (36:02):
And I think that's absolutely discussion. Yes, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
Well we're reaching the end of our episode today. Thank you, Bob.
Do you have a life valuing Bible verse you'd like
to share with our listeners.
Speaker 3 (36:19):
Absolutely absolutely. The one that I keep coming back to,
the one that I've actually had the honor of reading
at the funeral masses of my father and my brother
from it comes from Romans eight. What can separate us
from the love of God? Nothing, not even death itself,
(36:42):
can separate us from the love of God shown us
in Christ Jesus the Lord.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
Wow, that's that's that's pretty deep.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
Can I read it in it? It's an entirety, Bob,
Absolutely yes, Romans eight thirty eight. For I am sure
that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor
things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height,
nor death, nor anything else in all creation will be
(37:17):
able to separate us from the Love of God in
Christ Jesus Our Lord.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Amen. Amen.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
Well, thank you so much for joining us, Bob, and
thank you for all the work that you do to
protect life in New Hampshire and beyond. You really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
God bless you, No, thank you, Thank you for the invite,
thank you for all the work that you all do.
Well here.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
We appreciate seeing you and look forward to working with
you in the DJA.
Speaker 3 (37:46):
Absolutely take care all right, Hi, heyjee bye.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
Everyone, See you next week.
Speaker 5 (37:52):
Thank you for listening to the Ever Living Podcast. If
you have scripture questions or things you'd like to share,
please feel free to email set ever livingpodat gmail dot com.
Also make sure to follow us on Instagram at ever
dot living podcast. And if you like this podcast, please
make sure to subscribe and share with a friend and
(38:13):
give us a five star review.
Speaker 3 (38:15):
See you next week.
Speaker 5 (38:16):
May God bless you and be very near to you,
and may you be ever living
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