| Urgent Action Needed: California Legislators Resurrect Assisted Suicide Bill for Immediate Vote (9/1) Democrats in the California legislature are perverting the normal legislative process and bringing SB 128 (now called ABX2-15) – the Physician-Assisted Suicide bill – up for an immediate vote on Tuesday.Even Governor Brown has harshly criticized the end-run around the Assembly Health Committee. In a surprise, bipartisan move, Southern California Democrats on the Health Committee promised to vote against the bill in July, causing Lois Wolk, the bill’s author, to take it off calendar for the rest of the legislative session.Now the bill is back – reintroduced in a special legislative session on health care. This time, it faces a much friendlier committee that is likely to approve the bill for a full floor vote. Please act today by contacting your state senators and assemblymembers immediately to urge them to vote ‘no’ on ABX2-15. A sample letter with talking points is available on LLDF web site, the same is available for sampling, copy and pasting below: I am writing on behalf of vulnerable Californians who need your protection. I urge you to vote ‘no’ on ABX2-15, which would legalize physician-assisted suicide. Whether or not you have decided at this time how you will vote, please consider with an open mind the needs of the diverse coalition of Californians who oppose this bill, because it threatens their medical care and the lives of our most vulnerable citizens. I agree with the bipartisan majority of the Assembly Health Committee who refused to vote for this bill because it fundamentally alters the goal of medicine. By offering an “alternative” to life, medicine (which is already overly influenced by economic concerns), would be permitted to ally with the illness against the patient to end her life, rather than being limited to allying with the patient against the illness to save her life and alleviate her suffering. In this way, this bill is extremely uncompassionate. I stand with all the disabled, elderly, mentally ill, and terminally ill Californians, and their caregivers, who know that the unintended, negative consequences of legalizing physician-assisted suicide cannot be prevented by the legislature, regardless of how complex and detailed the bill becomes. The drafters of this bill are well aware of the dangers this bill poses. Numerous provisions attempt to address such dangers, but these provisions cannot succeed in preventing abuses or protecting the vulnerable. If the legislature opens the door to access to lethal drugs, it would be choosing to expose millions to exploitation and homicide for the sake of a very few who want the choice to end their lives. It would allow lethal drugs to circulate in society untraced and unaccounted for. It would allow health insurers to push “cost- effective” suicide instead of appropriate treatments. It also represents a slippery slope from “voluntary” suicide to involuntary euthanasia by recommendation of doctors or even health insurance companies. ABX2-15 strikes the wrong balance and is wrong for California. I urge you to vote, ‘no’ on ABX2-15 and to support instead laws that promote the quality and dignity of the lives of the sick, elderly, and disabled. |