Posted on 10/06/2008 2:43:25 AM PDT by Man50D
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed into law a bill that opponents say could open the door to the eventuality of physician-assisted suicide in the nation’s most populous state.
AB 2747 mandates that physicians, nurse practitioners and physician assistants provide patients diagnosed with a terminal illness – or who have been given a diagnosis of one year or less to live – with “comprehensive information and counseling regarding legal end-of-life options, as specified.”
Specifically the law obligates doctors to inform the patient about the option of “withholding or withdrawal of life-sustaining treatments” – including food and water.
Health care providers will be required to refer or transfer the patient if they can not, in good conscience, comply with the request.
Randy Thomasson of the Sacramento-based Campaign for Children and Families (CCF) called the law “a backdoor way” of bringing assisted suicide to a state that has already rejected the practice by referendum.
Saying the issue should be up to the voters, not the Legislature, Thomasson said Schwarzenegger had given his assent to physician- and nurse-assisted suicide by means of starvation and dehydration.
"AB 2747 allows a physician assistant or a nurse to opine that a patient is 'terminal,' and then recommend an unnatural death via 'palliative sedation,'" Thomasson said.
"Depressed patients who succumb to this pressure will be drugged unconscious and die from dehydration, usually within five to 10 days. Nothing in AB 2747 prohibits this horror," he added.
Kathi Hamlon, a spokeswoman for the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide, said even if the bill does not actually legalize assisted suicide, it could open the doors to it.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnsnews.com ...
Hawkings was given two years to live some twenty plus years ago.
I stand against assisted suicide unless the person is in so much pain at the very end, that it would be a blessing to have it end a few days earlier than it would naturally have ended anyway.
Too bad its not forced suicide for all the liberals in the state. They are clearly already brain-dead anyways.
Arnold....you are dancing on the trapdoor of HELL.....your Bishop should EX-COMMUNICATE YOU.....ASAP!! Are you listening BISHOP???
I see that the writer of this story didn’t actually READ the bill...or else he is just bearing false witness.
Ahnold and his butt fugly Kennedy wife are going to have to do this.
I know of no nurses that will do this.
Lets see mass firings of nurses.
LMAO!!!!
I thought the same thing.
Hopefully, we won’t be made into crackers.
Wow, we are in a financial crisis and Arnold wants to kill off people.
Jesus is definitely coming soon!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.