California’s “assisted death” legislation clears Senate hurdle
How about a side of death with those taxes?
Since we “celebrated” Tax Day with an analysis on the difficulties of cutting down the tax code, now seems like a good time to review the topic that is the only other certainty in life — death.
California’s politicians, not content with messing around with our water flow, are looking to OK physician-assisted suicide rules.
A controversial bill to bring physician-assisted death to California passed its first hurdle Wednesday after hundreds of people lined up to voice support and opposition to the legislation.
Senators approved the legislation in a packed committee hearing in the state Capitol.
“We are pleased to see it pass,” said Sen. Bill Monning, D-Carmel, one of the authors of SB128, which would allow a mentally competent terminally ill adult to receive a lethal prescription to hasten death. The Senate Health Committee voted 6-2 along party lines to pass the legislation, with Sen. Richard Pan, a Democrat from Sacramento who is also a doctor, abstaining from the vote.
“This vote reflects the changing sentiment in California,” Monning said.
The legislators who approved the rules point to a video made by Brittany Maynard as a reason for their vote. Maynard was a Bay Area woman who moved to Oregon last year to take advantage of that state’s Death With Dignity law and died in November after taking a deadly prescription.
However, this deal is not done, yet. Counterarguments to the proposal abound:
Similar bills have failed twice before in California. Some doctors argue it undermines their role to heal the sick. “Physician-assisted suicide is the antithesis of being a physician,” said Warren Fong, president of the Medical Oncology Assn. of Southern California.
Disabled and depressed people might be coerced to end their lives by people with financial motives, worried Marilyn Golden, senior policy analyst for the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund.
“It’s a deadly mix to combine our broken, profit-driven healthcare system and assisted suicide, which would instantly become the cheapest treatment,” Golden told the Senate panel.
Interestingly, Senator Dianne Feinstein gave her support for the measure…and half of the states are looking at “right to die” rules as well:
As of April 10, at least another 25 states have considered death with dignity bills, according to Compassion & Choices, a Denver-based nonprofit organization that advocates for these laws. Some of those bills already have died in committee.
“The movement has reached a threshold where it is unstoppable,” said President Barbara Coombs of Compassion & Choices, who was also chief petitioner for the Oregon Death with Dignity Act.
While Maynard’s moving video is cited as the reason for the sudden glut of “death with dignity” legislation, one can see that death panels would be easier to operate with such an option in place.
Speaking of Obamacare, the latest news is that the head of Colorado’s Obamacare exchange let it slip that the state-run operation may not be able to cut it financially. Add this to the failures of the state exchanges in Oregon and Maryland, and one can project that the prognosis for this massive program is terminal.
Finally, to end this post back on the subject of taxes, many Americans are writing a bigger check because they failed to get the mandated health insurance. The penalty is 1 percent of income, or $95, whichever is greater.
But the IRS truly has a heart-of-gold (as long as you aren’t a dreaded Tea Party member): The agency is going to waive penalties for taxpayers With delayed or inaccurate Obamacare insurance information.
Given the glitches in the online sign-up systems, that may be the best news we get for some time.
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Comments
Of course, this would come from a state on a “death watch”
ObamaCare Death Panels – they should never be for people, but maybe they should be for government agencies and states such as California?
Call me heartless, but I’m having a hard time working up any concern over a state full of Dems who want to off themselves.
It just might offset the illegal immigration wave.
Miss Leslie, you need to put down the pen and take control of that state.
People have individual dignity and personal responsibility, why would the state prohibit them from making the choice to die?
As usual, you lie. In THIS case, by implication.
This isn’t about an individual’s choice to die. It’s about ANOTHER’s assistance in bring about that death.
What is the difference if it is a physician helping or a gun dealer?
The analogy is almost complete with the trial and execution of abortion and suicide providers and consumers (i.e. women) of premeditated (i.e. elective) murder. Fortunately, the consumers of suicide services cannot be placed in double jeopardy on the principle of one death, which reduces the burden on courts and abortion industry… and Obamacare (aka “health care reform”).
No, that’s not quite right. The analogy fails with the disparity of intent. The abortion and suicide industry provide a service and product with the explicit intent and knowledge, and single-minded purpose, to terminate a human life. That’s not true of gun dealers, knife dealers, pillow dealers, etc.
“The abortion and suicide industry provide a service and product with the explicit intent and knowledge, and single-minded purpose, to terminate a human life.”
Limiting my comment to suicide (since I did not mention abortion in the first place), once again, the suicide is by choice.
Once again, suicide has only one intent and purpose: to end human life. The physician, and society, would be compelled to aid the commission of premeditated murder for casual, capricious, or personal causes. That it is a suicide does not change the characterization of the act. It only affects the ability of society to prevents its realization (i.e. so-called “wicked problem”). However, the “wicked” nature of this problem does not imply that society should normalize or promote this objectively dysfunctional behavior: debasement of human life through elective action.
That said, there was once a time that life was priority in civilized society. Today, the priorities are wealth, pleasure, leisure, and welfare. These are personal ambitions. There isn’t a moral cause or justification to sacrifice human life, and certainly not to compel its accessory, for light reasons in order to fulfill those ambitions.
ANOTHER implicit lie!
If a person goes into a gun dealer and declares they want a firearm to use in committing THEIR OWN suicide (which they are VERY unlikely to get), how is that the same as a physician administering a deadly dose of some toxin?
See? You have your nasty ass hanging out here AGAIN today. Why?
“ANOTHER implicit lie!
If a person goes into a gun dealer and declares they want a firearm to use in committing THEIR OWN suicide (which they are VERY unlikely to get), how is that the same as a physician administering a deadly dose of some toxin?”
Ha! Now I have trapped you in a lie! The physician need not “administer” anything! He merely provides the means (as does the gun dealer) and lets the patient do the button-pressing!
But, liar, the sole purpose of the physician’s presence and provision of the MEANS is to assist a suicide…if not PERFORM the act of killing itself.
Again, a gun dealer is selling a firearm, which most all of us have a perfect right to purchase. They are VERY unlikely to sell one to a person who declares they are buying it kill themselves. And they damn sure won’t be in the home with the suicide IF it’s ever used in that fashion.
Bug.
“But, liar, the sole purpose of the physician’s presence and provision of the MEANS is to assist a suicide…if not PERFORM the act of killing itself.
Again, a gun dealer is selling a firearm, which most all of us have a perfect right to purchase. They are VERY unlikely to sell one to a person who declares they are buying it kill themselves. And they damn sure won’t be in the home with the suicide IF it’s ever used in that fashion.”
Another Lie! The physician need not be present, he may just leave a machine for the patient to use (or even leave a pill). There is no difference between leaving a pill and leaving a gun.
Furthermore, even if, as you say, gun dealers would NEVER sell to a suicide case, what about private sales (which are perfectly legal)?
But you are LYING. Again.
Nobody needs a doctor to provide a “pill”. They can simply take a lot of Ibuprofen tablets. Works every time you try it. (You should test this, BTW.)
Once you do that, just wait a a half hour and call 9-11. You will die in the hospital, and nobody can stop it.
Furthermore, for such pro-traditional-marriage guy, you sure focus a lot on my “nasty ass”…
You insist on waving it around. It’s disgusting.
One of us has brought up the topic of ass, one of us has not. One of us also has an unhealthy fixation on what gay men do in the bedroom (hint, it’s not me!).
“One of us also has an unhealthy fixation on what gay men do in the bedroom”
You are lying. Again. Put up ANY post of mine where I show ANY interest in what gay men…or gay women…do in their private lives.
See, I don’t care. I DO care about the perversion of important cultural norms like marriage. Those are different things, but I don’t expect a moron like you to grasp this.
The problem with transgender and transsexual equality is that it is selective. Instead of principled tolerance of dysfunctional orientations and behaviors (with respect to fitness), the advocates and activists for trans-equality support selective exclusion. It’s part of a pro-choice doctrine that creates moral hazards through unreconciled positions.
The assistance consists exclusively of providing the means so that the death can be painless and merciful. The assistant does not in any manner initiate or participate in the procedure.
We now have years of evidence that the procedure is not abused and that the scare tactics used in place of sectarian religious arguments have not come to pass. That is not to say that there may not have been a few abuses. I don’t know of any, but I am sure you can dig them up. Of course guns do kill people, but you certainly wouldn’t want them banned for that reason.
The lefties running the American Pharmacist Association recently just came out with a policy statement that discourages pharmacists from supplying drugs for use in lawful executions. On the basis that such activities are “fundamentally contrary to the role of pharmacists as providers of health care.”
I wonder how they will square the circle on participating in this form of killing?
I’m not sure how the Rx guys would respond, but at least in the case of suicide, the death is by choice…
A choice entirely unrelated to the “provision of health care.”
But otherwise, brilliant!
Planned Retirement. I wonder if suicide services will be provided by the State-sponsored/protected abortion industry that has an established record of efficiently terminating unwanted or inconvenient human lives.
It’s one thing to recognize and promote individual dignity, albeit selectively; but it is beyond comprehension that a civilized mind would seek to normalize or promote suicide, or abortion for that matter.
I’m reminded of WJC’s “safe and legal,” [but not at all rare] and RBG’s “populations that we don’t want to have too many of.”
At some point will we have to accept the decision of government officials or even some family members that it’s our duty to die? Might this sometime be considered a delayed abortion?
Truly sickening.
As always, the devil is in the details.
As I understand it, Oregon’s law requires a terminal illness/cancer diagnosis that will lead to death within six months from at least two physicians, plus a possible psychiatric evaluation that the patient is in sound mental health (not just clinically depressed). Even with that, there are more regulatory hurdles: must be over 18 and an Oregon resident (out-of-staters must move here “permanently”, like Brittany Maynard did), must be informed of alternatives, must make two oral requests plus a written request co-signed by two witnesses, etc.
The whole process is summed up here (PDF warning).
It says something that in the 15 years Oregon’s law has been in place and active (it was challenged, which delayed implementation), only around 1,200 people have received lethal prescriptions, and fewer than 800 of those have used them. Contrary to what some people claim, it’s hard to invoke this law – ingesting a whole bottle of Tylenol, using a firearm, or tying a cinder block to one’s ankle and jumping into the Columbia River are all comparatively easier – many physicians simply refuse to write the prescriptions, and people are not legally killing themselves left and right.
On a personal note, though I’m ideologically opposed to suicide, I don’t believe the State should criminalize it. The decision should be left between the patient and his/her family, doctor(s), priest(s)/rabbi(s)/cleric(s), and God.
First comes the ability of the State to assist suicide, next will come the responsibility to commit suicide (when keeping one alive is deemed to expensive), followed by an order to commit suicide (once one is unproductive for and/or non-supportive of the collective).
Another signature policy of the Party’s DRRAT (Displace, Replace, [over-]Regulation, Abort, and Tax) doctrine.
It’s telling that after the planned parenthood of around 1 million American lives annually; trillion dollar deficits that devalue both capital and labor; reform of health care through abortion, raising the poverty line, and shifting liability to the states, parents, young, etc.; replacement of American citizens with cheap illegal aliens; shifting “green” environmental hazards overseas and obfuscating local consequences; they still need a planned retirement to reduce the problem set in order to make the numbers work.
What is the State and Party’s compelling interesting to normalize (i.e. promote) elective abortion and suicide?
“What is the State and Party’s compelling interesting to normalize (i.e. promote) elective abortion and suicide?”
The “compelling interesting” issue is a non-sequitor. We should have the freedom to off ourselves regardless of what the State thinks.
You do have that freedom. Everyone enjoys the freedom to end their own life at will. In fact, it is practically impossible (i.e. so-called “wicked problem”) to prevent it.
What we do not enjoy nor should we expect is the aid and comfort of society to be an accessory in ending a human life for causes other than self-defense. The compulsion by democratic or authoritarian means to be an accessory to the commission of elective murder or abortion should be considered unacceptable.
One benefit of allowing assisted-suicide is that one’s children need not find one hanging from the rafters.
One can easily call a crime-scene cleaner in advance. I recommend it in your case.
Police are always minutes away, right?
state regulates how much pain medication can be prescribed on one side (to prevent death/harm) and on other side state is allowing meds to be prescribed specifically to kill you.
let the dr prescribe what they and the patient want and both sides of the issue will self correct.
now hydrocodone is schedule 1 drug I have to take urine tests (insurers can require this now regardless of job status, VA required to do it per law) to prove I am not using incorrectly.
the rules don’t affect the people being killed/hurt from the acetaminophen in the hydrocodone mix as the people hurt were using otc alongside. and the fda ruling on the 10/650 and change to schedule 1 says if needed use OTC to make up the difference.
see the issue? they made it schedule 1 and made 10/650 illegal due to people dying from using OTC alongside and in the ruling tell people to use OTC.
so they make stupid rules like this on on hand and on other hand states pass laws allowing dr to kill you if you meet certain requirements.
better setup is to just let the dr and patient use what they think is best for the situation.
Implicit in the inalienable right to life is the right to choose not to live.
If there’s no right to choose not to live, life isn’t a right, it’s an obligation or a duty.
We have the right to do a lot of things that it would be wrong to do. That’s the primary difference between a free society and a Totalitarian one. (See: Everything not Forbidden is Compulsory.)
No one is denied the right to end their own life. They are only denied the aid and comfort of society to commit elective murder for a cause other than self-defense.
only if you succeed. in many states if you fail you are involuntarily committed until its determined you won’t try again.
if you yell people beforehand the same thing can happen.
sounds to me like a denial to the right to end your own life.
this is not something the law can or should address.
The abortion industry (e.g. Planned Parenthood) is perfectly appointed to perform assisted suicides, and, in fact, capital executions of convicted murderers. Not only does the industry achieve nearly 100% collateral damage (around 1 million wholly innocent human lives annually in America alone), but they even manage to take the life of the consumer or contractor (i.e. women) of its services. Not even the military can claim such superb efficiency and completeness. Now add another feather to the industry’s cap: assisted suicide, and it is a wonder that the State is still conducting its own capital executions, without the “moral” cover of so-called human and civil “rights” businesses under the “pro-choice” or selective religion.
Funny you should mention capital executions. Perhaps you are unaware that there have been a couple of hundred exonerations of inmates awaiting execution. Texas probably executed an innocent man and Rick Perry covered it up. Perhaps you should put your efforts there, and allow the terminally ill the right to decide their fate for themselves.
Why is it that you people proclaim the need for freedom and the need to get government out of your lives, but you seem determined to control the rights of others based on your ‘selective religion’? Five states now have such laws and Planned Parenthood hasn’t participated in ANY. If you want to be taken seriously, come up with a good argument and stop conflating.