California Wants to Make It Easier for People to Kill Themselves in Assisted Suicides
of California End of Life Option Actwhich regulates assisted suicide, was passed in 2015 and became operative on June 9, 2016.
Like the law in other states, California law states that patients must have a terminal illness. It defined this state as “an incurable and irreversible disease that is medically confirmed and, within reasonable medical judgment, will result in death within six months.”
But the law is too strict, right-to-die activists say. A state senator, Catherine Blakespear, wants Californians to have easier access to assisted suicide. SB 1196 would replace terminal illness with “a serious and incurable medical condition.”
In addition, the bill would:
- Extend the Act to those with early to mid-stage dementia
- Allow aid-in-dying medication to be received by patient-administered intravenous (IV) infusion
- Remove the requirement to wait 48 hours between oral requests
- Remove the California residency requirement
- Remove the sunset date of 2031
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Bioethics writer Wesley J. Smith was scathing in his criticism of the proposed changes, whose definitions, he wrote in National Review, is “wide enough to drive a hearse through.” He concluded:
SB 1196 exposes the lie commonly practiced by the euthanasia movement. They promise limited access, only as a last resort. But they didn’t mean it. These laws have continued to expand over time toward the final destination of death on demand as a human right and euthanasia has been normalized as the preferred — i.e., “honorable” — way to die.
LifeNews Note: Michael Cook is editor of BioEdge where this story appears.
