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Suicide Bill Approved by California Legislature Awaits Action by Gov. Schwarzenegger
By J. Margaret Datiles | September 2, 2008
California AB 2747, a bill promoting suicide, passed the California Assembly this past Thursday by a 42-32 vote. If Gov. Schwarzenegger does not sign or veto the bill within twelve days after the bill is presented to him by the Assembly, it will become law without his signature.
The bill’s original purpose was to legalize physician-assisted suicide. The measure was amended in committee and it now promotes physician-assisted suicide in an indirect but equally dangerous way.
It now purports to require physicians to furnish patients with information on how to end their lives. According to LifeNews.com, “[n]ot only does the bill promote suicide, it forces physicians who don’t want to be involved in the grisly practice to refer cases to doctors who don’t mind pushing death on their patients.” In addition, under AB 2747, if patients choose to commit suicide by starving or dehydrating themselves to death, physicians are required to allow this, and to provide sedative medications during the excruciating process of starvation/dehydration. In other words, all physicians would be required to participate in the suicide of their patients, either directly or through material cooperation.
The bill also mandates that information on the financial costs of suicide be furnished to patients who request it, and offers no guidelines on how this information is to be provided. The California Disability Alliance (CDA) has noted that the type of information provided and how it is presented can make a huge difference in a patient’s decision. The CDA stated: “In a society where many people have no health insurance or have inadequate coverage, financial pressures rather than medical considerations could easily skew the discussion away from what is best for the patient and toward what may be best for payors.” The CDA argues that AB 2747 is “the wrong answer” to the clear need for better end-of-life care.”
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has not stated his personal opinion on AB 2747. In January 2006, Schwarzenegger stated that a physician-assisted suicide law “is a decision probably that should go to the people, like the death penalty or other big issues.”
When physician-assisted suicide bills were introduced in California in the past, Schwarzenegger’s administration reported to San Francisco Gate news that the Governor was “very open-minded” on the issue, and was willing to carefully examine legislation that is presented to him by the Assembly. GOP consultant Dan Schnur has noted that Schwarzenegger’s willingness to consider progressive bills is directly in line with Schwarzenegger’s profile as “a social moderate.”
The medical community and a plethora of advocacy organizations have come forward in opposition to AB 2747, recognizing the dangers it presents to the disabled, elderly, sick, and poor. Echoing the American Medical Association’s opposition to legalizing physician-assisted suicide, California Medical Association President Dr. Anmol S. Mahal asserted: “Assisting someone to die…is fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer.”
Hospitals and other organizations that have come forward in strong opposition to the bill include California Family Council, California Nurses for Ethical Standards, Mercy San Juan Medical Center, Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital, and St. Mary’s Medical Center in San Francisco.
Senator Sam Aanestad (R-Grass Valley) has issued a statement that he will urge Gov. Schwarzenegger to veto AB 2747. The Senator exclaimed: “I want the Governor to clearly know that this measure cloaked as compassion is actually sponsored by a group of people who want to give physicians the legal right to take part in the death of another person.”
The enactment of AB 2747, which indirectly promotes physician-assisted suicide, will mark the beginning California’s slide toward euthanasia. The promotion of suicide takes advantage of the depressed and the disabled, and of patients suffering from treatable diseases. As Wesley J. Smith, a California attorney and consultant for the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide, pointed out:
“Indeed, since 1973 Dutch doctors have gone from killing the terminally ill who ask for it, to the chronically ill who ask for it, to the disabled who ask for it, to depressed people who aren’t even physically ill who ask for it.”
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Topics: Assisted Suicide, End of Life, In The News |
September 2nd, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Culture of Life: Going, Going…Gone?
by Senator Sam Aanestad
Part of the reason I became an oral surgeon was because of my belief that serving God means valuing human life. I took an oath to protect those that He creates.
As a legislator in the California Senate, that oath is even more critical.
Patients facing a terminal illness have many needs. Among them are comfort, pain relief and information to make critical decisions. They need dignity, respect and the support of those who love and care for them. They need prayer and the help of clergy, family and friends.
What they don’t need is an intrusion into their relationship with their doctor.
Proponents of California’s AB 2747 “Terminal Patients’ Right to Know End-of-life Options” say it is just about information. Unfortunately, it does much more than educate terminally ill patients. It interferes with the care of patients who are about to receive the worst news of their lives.
Sponsored by a group that promotes physician-assisted suicide—formerly known as the Hemlock Society—the original language of AB 2747 included a mandate that doctors give specific information to patients when advising them they have less than one year to live. Patients would have to be told that they could be sedated into a coma and stop eating and drinking.
Dozens of opponents testified against this measure during a recent marathon hearing of the Senate Health Committee. They included disability rights advocates, nursing organizations, doctors who care for cancer patients, minority rights groups, members of religious communities, hospitals and individuals who are affected by this issue.
A breast cancer surgeon opposed to AB 2747 told me that her patients need more than just “end of life” options.
“I was usually the one to make the diagnosis and give that information to my patients and their families,” she told me. “The relationships I developed with these women were built over time. They trusted me to take care of them.”
She cared for patients who were clinically depressed or addicted to Methamphetamine or mentally ill. Some were from abusive situations. Some came from cultures that condemned physical illness as a sign of moral failure. Some women preferred their religious faith to medical treatment.
She explained how AB 2747 would hurt a woman facing Stage IV breast cancer:
“It would have been cruel to take a list of treatments that may not even apply to my patient and tell her ‘Here, this is what the California Legislature said I have to tell you when you find out you’re dying and you ask me what to do.’”
These women need a doctor to see them as individuals. As a health care professional myself, I can’t imagine treating a dying patient according to a government dictate of what they need to hear and when.
It bothers me that AB 2747 leaves no option for the compassion of a doctor who knows her patient best. A cancer doctor caring for a depressed patient who says “What can I do?” would have no recourse other than to do exactly as the bill mandates—give the information the California Legislature says she needs when they say she needs it.
The priority for every patient is to dispense a laundry list developed by Sacramento politicians.
It also bothers me that this legislation is a back door approach for advocates of euthanasia. AB 2747 contains language that can easily be amended in the future to include other treatments than those it now includes—treatments like those advocated by the bill’s sponsor, the former Hemlock Society.
People who are hurting don’t need the legal maneuver in AB 2747. They don’t need state government to stand between people who suffer and those they choose to care for them.
If you don’t believe that a government’s role is to devalue human life, please defend the terminally ill. Urge the Governor of California to VETO AB 2747.
Senator Aanestad represents the 4th Senate District and serves as Vice Chair of the Senate Health Committee.
September 2nd, 2008 at 5:16 pm
[...] The Americans United for Life Blog carries this post that indicates: “California AB 2747, a bill promoting suicide, passed the California Assembly this past Thursday by a 42-32 vote. If Gov. Schwarzenegger does not sign or veto the bill within twelve days after the bill is presented to him by the Assembly, it will become law without his signature.” [...]
October 1st, 2008 at 11:08 am
[...] more information on this bill see my previous posts . Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and [...]