When activists successfully legalized assisted suicide in California, they persuaded the California Medical Association to shift from opposition to neutrality with the promise that no doctor would be forced to participate. But here’s the thing with assisted suicide: Such promises are made to be broken.
Now that assisted suicide is well-ensconced in California culture, a bill has been filed that would destroy medical conscience for doctors who oppose assisted suicide. From SB 380 (new text in italics):
(3) If a health care provider is unable or unwilling to carry out a qualified individual’s request under this part and the qualified individual transfers care to a new health care provider or health care facility, the individual’s medical records shall be provided to the individual and, upon the individual’s request, timely transferred with documentation of the date of the individual’s request for a prescription for aid-in-dying drug in the medical record, pursuant to law.
(4) Failure to provide information about medical aid in dying to an individual who requests it, or failure to refer upon the individual’s request to another health care provider or health care facility that is willing to provide the information, is considered a failure to obtain informed consent for subsequent medical treatments.
(5) Neither a health care provider nor a health care facility shall engage in false, misleading, or deceptive practices relating to a willingness to qualify an individual or provide a prescription to a qualified individual under this part. Intentionally misleading an individual as to the willingness of a provider or facility to participate under this part constitutes coercion or undue influence.
Here is what that would mean. A physician who refused to prescribe poison to a legally qualified patient — perhaps because of religious beliefs or wanting to simply follow the Hippocratic Oath — would be obliged upon the patient’s request to find another doctor he or she knows is willing to prescribe. In other words, finding the participating M.D. would be the doctor’s responsibility, not the patient’s.
Refuse that complicity and the doctor could face being sued for malpractice or being subjected to professional discipline. If the patient claimed the doctor falsely asserted he would participate in assisted suicide, he or she could face an even more egregious penalty for engaging in “coercion or undue influence.”
If this bill becomes law — and there is little reason to think it won’t considering how radical California’s legislature has become — every doctor in California could be forced to be complicit in ending patients’ lives as a condition of continuing in their profession and/or being able to obtain malpractice insurance.
Among other great harms, such a public policy could cause a serious brain drain. Think about it. Doctors with decades of experience treating the most serious illnesses might well decide to retire rather than be forced to engage in lethal activities they consider immoral, unethical, and/or in violation of their religious beliefs.
Assisted-suicide activists always pound their chests that their cause is about “choice.” But because many doctors oppose prescribing poison, the sponsors of this bill want to leave doctors no way out. The culture of death brooks no dissent.
The above comes from a Feb. 11 story in National Review.
These wicked Democrats continue their evil agenda. A physician goes into the medical field to save life and not destroy it. Abortion and assisted suicide violate the essence of the Hipprocratic Oath, as the article notes. It certainly is in complete opposition to the moral and natural law.
Where is the Oath of Hippocrates?? The Satanic “Culture of Death” politicians who wrote and promoted this bill, need a firm opposition to this horrific sin! Catholic politicians involved with this bill, should be sternly warned, by their bishops– and if unrepentant– excommunicated!
Having watched both parents, and my wife’s mother die a slow, sometimes painful death, I respect [while not agreeing with] those who seek assisted suicide. Yes, life is from natural conception to natural death. But advances in medical procedures and equipment have prolonged [sometimes beneficially] life.
Let the patient and doctor, along with a spiritual advisor, make the decision. If the doctor is opposed to the procedure, perhaps the Medical Professional Organization can recommend a physician.
Suicide is a mortal sin.
Wrong. Suicide is grave matter, not mortal sin. Almost everyone who commits suicide is not morally culpable for the choice due to mental incapacity for rational decision making. You cannot see into anyone’s heart. God does.
Joan might be technically right: “Suicide is contrary to love for the living God (CCC 2281). As it does for all grave acts, the Church also teaches that both full knowledge and deliberate consent must be present for the grave act of suicide to become a mortal sin.” However, no one knows whether this is present and what state the person’s mind was when committing suicide not even Joan. Suicide is an act of self murder let’s not forget. So it could be a mortal sin. To deliberately plan over time an assisted suicide could be more of a condition for a mortal sin. Assisting someone to commit suicide is a mortal sin.
@ mikem – you are skidding down that slippery slope head first into euthanasia.
Good idea, mikem, to have a serious talk with your priest. Suicide is a terrible mortal sin. Unthinkable. Doctor-assisted suicide, in a supposedly “advanced” society, is a horrible crime, and must always be illegal! Doctors all must abide by the Hippocratic Oath, a strong medical society Code of Ethics, and excellent morals, in the practice of medicine! Only God can make a life, and only God can take a life. A doctor– or a patient– must never “play God.”
Interesting concept… “playing God.” Let’s see, when you use medicine to halt an illness, are you playing God? You’re interfering with the natural course of events.
Joan…Anon is right. He is referring to deliberately taking a life. Interfering with the natural course of events is not playing God. I believe he meant deliberately killing someone is playing God.
With all due respect to what you (and everyone else for that matter), No. Just No.
California used to be the “Golden State”. It will soon be called “The Bloody State” or “The Empty State”.
Persecute or prosecute?
Both.
By the process of patient gradualism we knew it was coming. Why are we surprised when it’s here? Will anything be done to stop it? No. Liberals will drown out dissent with their usual special arguments that appeal to uninformed masses who watch and listen to liberal-controlled major media outlets.
I am a different “Anon.” Our society is definitely not “advanced,” it is the “Culture of Death,” heading into the Dark Ages! There is no respect at all for God, nor for Life!
california regulates and licenses EXTERMINATORS
all this should be THEIR job
not the job of physicians
As a nurse since 1962, all I can say is that this is pure evil. It puts the nail in the Culture of Death
No one in this world should ever be trained, licensed and hired to commit murder on sick patients, in the name of false, “quack medical care,” as part of their job! That is called homicide– and is evil! Medical Quackery! Not the practice of “medicine” at all! All doctors must practice medicine strictly by the Hippocratic Oath!
Just to be clear, the Hippocratic Oath is a ceremonial tradition that is an optional “rite” in medical school graduation events. The wording can be torqued or omitted to conform to any benign sentiment one wants it to. It isn’t a condition of conferral of the degree.
That said, what unmitigated hypocrisy. When the moratorium on the capital punishment in California is lifted, you Californians should demand of the CMA that there be a mandatory, random rotation of California physicians to carryout/attend executions by lethal injection. On the grounds of humane treatment of the condemned, of course.
Mark, this is true– but the Oath of Hippocrates used to be taken very seriously, and its principles were enshrined in law and in medical Codes of Ethics, in many countries! Violations resulted in criminal penalties!
Medicine once was considered a noble healing art, which only a few talented individuals would learn and practice. The medical profession used to be highly esteemed! When I was young, the doctor’s talents of a compassionate, sensitive, caring “bedside manner,” was widely viewed as “half the cure!” A doctor was a heroic healer who saved lives, and such evils as abortion and euthanasia were absolutely unthinkable and prohibited. Today, medical schools train huge numbers of doctors, and the doctor’s professional skills are no longer considered as “noble medical arts”– instead, their medical skills are viewed as “services rendered” to “consumers”
That’s because most people’s illnesses can be treated the same way a mechanic fixes a car. Bedside manner not needed. Skill at repair more valuable.
Doctors and priests used to be very much admired and looked up to. Doctors often made house calls, and priests would visit parishioners’ homes, often acting in roles as psychologists and social workers, to help Catholic families in need, with various problems– as well as guiding them spiritually. That was before psychology became popular, and before more social services were available, for those in need. There was almost no health insurance, until the mid-20th century. The idea of government-sponsored health insurance was viewed as “socialism,” which the AMA also denounced and fought. Medical services were affordable, and families paid their doctor bills, like any other bills. We did not have the huge, expensive scientific and medical advances that we have today– but life was simpler, less costly, more affordable, and much less complicated, and less stressful.