Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Suicide?

An Inportant notice from Catholics for the Common Good:

AB 2747 Facing Final Deadline -Friday, May 30
Contact Your Assembly Member's Capitol Office Today


Time is crucial- this is the last possible week for a vote on AB 2747, the pernicious bill designed to establish a platform for assisted suicide in California. If the bill is not brought up for an assembly vote by the legislative deadline of this Friday, May 30-- it will be dead.
It is important to voice our opposition to AB 2747 more vehemently than ever. While the cancer doctors are prominent and active opponents of the bill- inexplicably, the California Medical Association has thrown its support behind AB 2747.

AB 2747 is a sneaky bill which links the rarely used practice of palliative sedation to "voluntary stopping of eating and drinking" (VSED), establishing the latter as a legitimate medical option. However, VSED is not recognized as a medical treatment- it causes the patient to die slowly of starvation and dehydration. AB 2747 mandates health care providers to inform patients of this and other end-of-life options when they have been diagnosed with a year or less to live.Making VSED a medical option would present a very convenient opportunity for advocates of physician-assisted suicide to propose lethal prescriptions as a means of ending life in a more "humane" way.

California bishops are strongly opposed to the bill, along with Catholic hospitals and disability groups.

For talking points and more information on the bill, go to http://www.ccgaction.org/life/pas/AB2747Update.

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