The Assisted-Suicide Movement Goes on Life Support

Wall Street Journal ^ | May 22, 2015 | Aaron Kheriaty

[SunkenCiv]

[subtitle] A George Soros-backed effort in California has stalled, the latest sign of weak backing for the deadly practice.

In the past 20 years, more than 100 campaigns to legalize assisted suicide have been introduced in various states. All but three have failed.

In 2012 the same Massachusetts voters who elected Elizabeth Warren and re-elected Barack Obama gave the thumbs down to doctor-assisted suicide. Compassion & Choices -- the "death with dignity" organization formerly called the Hemlock Society -- saw a 40-point lead in Massachusetts polls evaporate on election day, despite millions of dollars in campaign spending. Bills this year in Connecticut, Maryland and Colorado also failed after legislators took a closer look at assisted suicide.

Opponents representing many notable progressive organizations argue that if assisted suicide is legalized, for-profit health-care and insurance companies will see it as an inexpensive alternative to providing services to those whose treatment is most expensive. This is more than hypothetical: Cases in Oregon have surfaced showing that the Oregon Health Plan refused to pay for more expensive potentially life-extending cancer treatments, but offered to pay instead for the $50 assisted-suicide pills.

California is the latest place where the wheels appear to be coming off the assisted-suicide bandwagon. Senate Bill 128, the End of Life Option Act, was introduced in January after the widely-publicized death of Brittany Maynard, the 29-year-old patient who moved from California to Oregon to avail herself of that state's assisted-suicide law last November. Advocates for "end of life options" declared her case, which ended in her death, a game changer.

The bill was expected to fly through the California Senate, but now SB 128 is stalled. It was placed in the Senate Appropriations Committee "suspense file" last week, where bills go when they are short on votes.

[SunkenCiv]

Here's a PJmedia op-ed by Elizabeth Price Foley about the op-ed above:

[snip] A psychiatry professor's WSJ oped, "The Assisted Suicide Movement Goes on Life Support," explains why voters in liberal/progressive states such as Massachusetts have refused, and California is presently hesitating, to follow in the footsteps of existing right-to-die states such as Oregon and Washington. [/snip]

[SunkenCiv]

Of course, the big question is, are the methods used *sustainable*?!?

[Steely Tom]

Mr. Soros was involved in another assisted-suicide movement back in the old country.

Seems to be a consistent theme of his life.

Billions of dollars for me, assisted suicide for you.

[faithhopecharity]

Soros again! A one man evil tornado - destroys everything it can get ahold of.

[Jim from C-Town]

I would be more than happy to assist in George Soros’s suicide!

[healy61]

40 point leads do not evaporate on election day. People are learning to keep their mouths shut about their personal beliefs, and vote as they please. And lie like the dickens to pollsters.

[SunkenCiv]

I want a copy of the video.

[kaehurowing]

The bills have been defeated here because hundreds of disabled folks show up to testify that if this became law, sooner or later it would expand into something that would lead to disabled people being euthanized.