Protect "The Dignified Cycle of Natural Life and Death"
L.A. Daily News columnist Bridget Johnson has written a splendid column pointing out some of the many flaws with legalizing assisted suicide. Here is a sampling:Invariably, when society decides that some life is less valuable, less worth caring for, than other life, the results can be disastrous. Some "merciful" laws have descended into involuntary euthanasia as well, resting on the argument of keeping those humans around who would have an acceptable "quality of life." After the Netherlands legalized euthanasia in 2000 for 12-year-olds and up, the Groningen Protocol was established to ensure doctors wouldn't be prosecuted for killing infants they deemed not fit to live.
Johnson nails it: Being overdosed is so often called "death with dignity" by advocates and their media parrots, you would think that dying naturally is undignified. The only indignity is acting as if anyone has a life not worth living or protecting.
"My observations in the Netherlands persuade me that legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia are not the answer to the problems of the seriously or terminally ill," wrote Dr. Herbert Hendin, executive director of the American Suicide Foundation, in Psychiatric Times.
"The Netherlands has moved from assisted suicide to euthanasia, from euthanasia for the terminally ill to euthanasia for the chronically ill, from euthanasia for physical illness to euthanasia for psychological distress and from voluntary euthanasia to involuntary euthanasia (called `termination of the patient without explicit request')."
"Assisted suicide" is just semantics for a doctor prescribing the means to die versus the doctor administering the means to die. Regardless of the name, regardless of the method, the profession designated to care for the weakest crosses the line into doing harm.
As we remember friends who passed with grace, courage and unshakable dignity, let's also remember this week to remind our legislators of their duty to protect the inherently dignified cycle of natural life and death
Labels: A.B. 374. Assisted Suicide
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 1:55 PM
4 Comments
4 Comments:
Regarding the main villain pushing AB374 in the California legislature, Fabian Nunez in 2006 received a $50,000 contribution from Blue Cross to help kill a patient rights bill (Nunez was also a strong opponent of prop 89, the clean money initiative):
http://www.dirtymoneywatch.org/article/?storyId=788
"Blue Cross Repays Núñez At World Cup For Death of Patients' Rights Legislation
"When Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez sold off $25,000 seats at the World Cup to finance a campaign committee, he said AT&T would not be buying since Núñez authored AT&T's pay-tv deregulation legislation and put his Speakership power behind its easy passage. (Of course that didn't stop AT&T from hosting an earlier Pebble Beach golf fundraiser for Núñez's Democrats that raised $1.7 million.) The Núñez/AT&T bill passed 77-0 on the last night for legislation to make it out of the Assembly at 9 PM. The same night patients' rights legislation, strongly opposed by Blue Cross, died a quiet death on the Assembly floor, falling three votes short of passage.
"The patients' rights bill would have stopped junk health insurance policies that place no out of pocket limit on how much insured patients can be charged. Patients and consumer groups urged Núñez, who voted for the bill, to use his leadership post to rally votes for AB 2281 (Chan), as he had for AT&T's bill. Dana Christensen, who was left with $450,000 in medical bills after her husand died from cancer despite being insured, sent this letter to Núñez. Blue Cross asked the Speaker to stay out of the fight. Núñez did. And two weeks later, according to state campaign finance reports, Blue Cross contributed $50,000 to Núñez's ballot measure committee, enough for two tickets to the World Cup. Núñez never replied to Christensen.
"Prop 89 would ban such high roller contributions to politician controlled ballot measure committees. Maybe that's one reason why Núñez's chief political consultant, Gail Kaufman, is reportedly leading the campaign against Prop 89."
And I thought Nunez is such a big fan of patients rights that he even supports giving them the right to commit suicide!!
Thanks: JCHETCUTI2. Why am I not surprised?
If my modern, fully up to date computer displays "Nunez" as "Capital N, A with an accent, degrees, A with an accent, plusminus, lowercase ez" one more time, I'm gonna lose my faith in humankind's ability to control technology.
Last Tuesdays' judiciary committee hearing on ab374 can be watched at
http://www.calchannel.com/search.php?date=032707&source=All&type=All&title=&Search=Submit
click on WATCH next to Judiciary committee
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home