SB 128 Amended

Today, SB 128 was amended and re-referred to the Senate Appropriations Committee.

See this link for the new text:  http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/15-16/bill/sen/sb_0101-0150/sb_128_bill_20150414_amended_sen_v97.html

Margaret Dore, Esq., MBA

Problems with SB 128

SB 128 seeks to legalize assisted suicide and euthanasia in California.

Under the bill, young adults with chronic conditions, such as diabetes, are "eligible" for assisted suicide and euthanasia.  The bill, if passed, will create the following problems:

• The encouragement of people with years to live to throw away their lives.  
• The creation of new paths of elder abuse, especially for people with money (in the inheritance context).
• The empowerment of health care systems to steer patients to suicide, which is well documented in Oregon, one of the few states where assisted suicide is legal. 
• A likely increase in other "conventional" suicides, including violent suicides by firearms.   

To view documentation regarding these problems, and other problems with legalization, please click here for the text; click here for the attachments.

Protect your healthcare. Don't let legal assisted suicide come to California.

Kenneth Stevens, MD

http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/article17359709.html#storylink=cpy (fourth
letter down)

I am a doctor in Oregon, one of the few states where assisted suicide is legal. I have been following the progress of California’s assisted-suicide bill [SB 128] with alarm.

Here in Oregon, our Medicaid program steers patients to suicide, which is covered in lieu of treatments for cure or to extend life. Private health plans and providers have this same ability.

I first became involved with the assisted suicide issue shortly before my first wife died of cancer in 1982. We had just made what would be her last visit with her doctor. As we were leaving, he suggested that she overdose herself on medication. I still remember the look of horror on her face. She said “Ken, he wants me to kill myself.”

Protect your health care. Don’t let legal assisted suicide come to California.

DR. KENNETH STEVENS, SHERWOOD, ORE.

Brother pressured and written off

A few years ago, my brother, Wes Olfert, died in Washington State where assisted suicide is legal. 

When he was first admitted to the hospital, he made the mistake of asking about assisted suicide.  I say a mistake, because this set off a chain of events that interfered with his care and caused him unnecessary stress in what turned out to be the last months of his life.

By asking the question, he was given a "palliative care" consult by a doctor who heavily and continually pressured him to give up on treatment before he was ready to do so.  Other doctors and staff members also lost interest in helping him once they learned that he had asked about assisted suicide.

With legal assisted suicide, by brother's choice was not enhanced; he was instead written off and pressured to die.  Assisted suicide should not be legal.

Marlene Deakins, RN
Tuscon Arizona