Posted on 06/16/2018 10:47:39 AM PDT by Simon Green
A state appeals court has reinstated -- at least for now -- California's law allowing terminally ill people to end their lives. The Fourth District Court of Appeals in Riverside issued an immediate stay Friday putting the End of Life Option back into effect. The court also gave opponents of its decision until July 2 to file objections.
The law allows adults to obtain a prescription for life-ending drugs if a doctor has determined that they have six months or less to live.
Riverside County Superior Court Judge Daniel Ottolia declared the law unconstitutional last month, stating that it had been adopted illegally because lawmakers passed it during a special Legislative session called to address other matters. Ottolia didn't address the issue of whether it's proper for people to end their lives.
Right-to-die advocates hailed Friday's action.
"This stay is a huge win for many terminally ill Californians with six months or less to live because it could take years for the courts to resolve this case," Kevin Díaz, national director of legal advocacy for Compassion & Choices, said in a statement.
"Thankfully, this ruling settles the issue for the time being, but we know we have a long fight ahead before we prevail."
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who had asked the appeals court to stay Ottolia's ruling, also praised the decision.
"This ruling provides some relief to California patients, their families, and doctors who have been living in uncertainty while facing difficult health decisions," Becerra said. "Today's court ruling is an important step to protect and defend the End of Life Option Act for our families across the state."
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
“Court reinstates California law allowing terminally ill people to end their lives”
How about the terminally democrat?
Legalized assisted suicide grants medical professionals, death-dealing authority; this in turn results in irreparable damage to the doctor-patient relationship. Introducing death as a medical treatment option that can be offered by health care professionals transforms a trusted profession that has been solely dedicated to healing for millennia. It is because of this dedication to healing that doctors have enjoyed such respect and trust from their patients and society as a whole. The idea that government can give death-dealing power to certain individuals means that they can also enforce and regulate it. With an already broken healthcare system plagued with a spending problem, it is not difficult to imagine that assisted suicide will be an easy “fix” to our spending problem and legitimate treatment options will be refused.
In an attempt to limit who “qualifies” for assisted suicide, the legislation states that an individual must have been given a prognosis of six months or less left to live. All doctors who deal with terminal illnesses on a regular basis will tell you that these prognoses are an educated guess at best. It is dangerous and irresponsible to allow patients who have received such a prognosis (and who may be disoriented and vulnerable) to make lethal decisions based upon a “guess.”
Legalized assisted suicide will likely lead to poorer healthcare and increased pressure on the sick, the elderly, the disabled, and the traumatically injured. Those who advocate for the physically and mentally disabled have good reason to fear that pressure will be applied to euthanize the disabled and those who have been in traumatic accidents. As the concept of “a life not worth living” grows, and as the idea gains traction that disability (even milder forms) is a fate worse than death, those who struggle with disability may well be easy targets for those who advise suicide. Some may feel pressured to no longer be a “burden.” Many will have the sense of their dignity being lessened.
Granting individuals the right to end their life ultimately threatens us all because it implicitly denies the dignity of the dying. Failing to understand this dignity will lead to poorer care and will increase pressure on the elderly and dying to end their lives prematurely so that they are no longer a burden.
In other words, the “right to die” too easily becomes the “duty to die.” What begins sociologically through pressure not to be a burden, soon enough becomes economically necessary because insurance benefits may vanish. And one can’t ignore the possibility of eventual legal pressure. The experience in the Netherlands is particularly sobering.
BUT...they’d better not shoot themselves with one of those evil, EVIL guns to end their misery! *SMIRK*
I’m okay with this. As long as the individual decides and not the doctors. I watched my great grandfather take a whole year to die in pain while my grandmother and my grand aunts and aunts prayed to keep him alive. For what? Life on a respirator or in an iron lung? We all have our time in this realm and we need to move on to the next realm. There is one :-). There are many.
>>In other words, the “right to die” too easily becomes the “duty to die.”<<
“Slippery slope” arguments are specious. With or without a law allowing legally assisted suicides such pressures (which I have yet to see scientifically verified and tabulated) would just as easily still be equally present.
I dare say no more on this subject so I leave that for all to consider.
A gun is too messy.
Killing yourself in California is now called "relief."
These are such difficult issues to talk about.
Would someone want to be kept alive through artificial means, if they have some medical condition for which there is no hope of recovery? Would age be an issue? Do some people, especially older people who have lost a spouse and seen their circle of friends pass on, just want to go themselves?
I’m almost 86 (If I make it)——it’s OK with me.
.
Now, if we can just get these judges to take advantage of the new privilege.
yours: Killing yourself in California is now called “relief.”
mine: if you lived in the once-golden State of Californication, killing yourself would indeed be a relief
yours: “Now, if we can just get these judges to take advantage of the new privilege.”
mine: “Now, if we can just get these judges ... and politicians... to take advantage of the new privilege.”
Yes, I think that is an improvement.
Their is no “right” to kill oneself or have the State kill you. Doctors should NEVER have a “right” to kill others—that is a satanic (Vice) system which is unconstitutional. There is no “control” over people committing suicide like my sister which is free choice (and an evil but Just Law can’t protect from evil-—only can promote “public virtue” at best).
That concept of “right” to “die with dignity” (ha ha) is word manipulation and has NOTHING to do with “dignity”.
It is antithetical to Justice to “kill” others and have the Hippocratic Oath made into a joke (which is only based on the Christian Ethics of do no “harm” to others—the most just, rational ethic system on earth—Christianity).
Refusing extraordinary means to “live” is not the same thing at all and refusal of “care” is truly a Natural Right from God and people should have a right to refuse to be hooked up to man-made machines or to be treated with chemotherapy. (That is true freedom!!! and a Natural Right).
Justice is the Queen of Virtue and can ONLY promote “public virtue” at all times which consists of individual freedom (true freedom) always. There is no such thing as a “Just Law” (only constitutional kind) which promotes evil, satanic “ethics” where you can kill others, sodomize others, or use human beings in diabolical, irrational, meaningless, dehumanizing ways which strips dignity and meaning—which is only a Vice System (and unconstitutional as Nuremberg stated).
We have a DUTY to disobey unconstitutional “laws”-—those which promote satanism, slavery, sodomy, and other dehumanizing behaviors. We have a Vice System (which is unconstitutional) when they support Satanism—killing or dehumanization of others (those collective ideologies like socialism (slavery) which eliminate individual Natural Rights which only come from God).
Sometimes people live much longer than their prognosis. I worry that doctors that have to make decisions based on guidelines mandated to them by administrators, like Kaiser for example, will have to give the six month prognosis much more often, and encourage the end of life option. Think how much money they will save!
My life belongs to ME. It doesn’t belong to the church, the state, the courts or the legislature.
I don’t need their permission.
While I am personally opposed to Dr.-assisted suicide, I am wondering how this comports with the new “Right To Try Executive Order just promulgated by President Trump. Is opting to die, a legitimate “right to try” issue?
God created you and you have to answer to Him.
>>These are such difficult issues to talk about.<<
There is really only one.
Does a person have the inalienable right to end his/her own existence with no interference from the State or self-important busybodies?
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