SACRAMENTO — The California Medical Association has become the first state medical association in the nation to drop opposition to what has long been known as “physician-assisted suicide,” it said, acknowledging a shift in doctor and patient attitudes about end-of-life and aid-in-dying options.
The move comes as the doctors organization removed its opposition Wednesday to a controversial aid-in-dying bill that would allow terminally ill Californians to end their lives with doctor-prescribed drugs.
The medical association recently changed its internal policies so that it is neutral on the issue, deleting language that referred to aid in dying as “physician-assisted suicide.” The group has long opposed aid in dying on grounds that it violates doctors’ ethical and moral obligations to provide the best treatment possible.
The move paves the way for the bill in the Legislature, although opposition remains in the Catholic Church and among some disability rights groups.
Lawmakers introduced SB128 in January, three months after East Bay newlywed Brittany Maynard set off a worldwide movement in support of aid in dying by sharing her own decision to die with the help of her doctor. Maynard, who had terminal brain cancer, moved to Oregon to access the state’s Death with Dignity law, which the California legislation uses as a model. The 29-year-old Maynard said her final months were made more difficult by not being able to access life-ending drugs in her home state.
Maynard died Nov. 1 after using the lethal prescription. Her husband and mother have continued to share her story in the state Capitol to encourage lawmakers to change California’s laws so that others don’t have to move for similar end-of-life options. The bill passed along party lines in two Senate committees — health and judiciary.
Titled the End of Life Option Act, the bill would require two California physicians to agree that a mentally competent patient has six months or less to live before prescribing life-ending drugs. A terminal patient seeking the lethal prescription would then be required to make a written request and two oral requests at least 15 days apart.
Opponents of the bill have argued that vulnerable people can be coerced into seeking the deadly prescription by heirs looking to profit or by health insurers who find it cheaper to offer aid in dying rather than chemotherapy to live.
“It’s a bad bill because it has the possibility of impacting the most vulnerable in California who don’t have access to health insurance or the best of care and whose options are limited,” said Tim Rosales, spokesman for Californians Against Assisted Suicide.
One of the primary amendments the medical association sought in removing its opposition was to ensure that doctors who did not want to participate would also not be required to provide information on assisted-dying or refer a patient to a medical provider willing to offer such services. Monning said there will still be opportunities for patients to learn about aid in dying.
The amendments are expected to be finalized and made public next week. The medical association’s official position on the bill is neutral.
The medical association had to change its bylaws to remove its opposition, which Dr. Luther Cobb, president of the California Medical Association and a Humboldt County general surgeon said reflects a change in patient and doctor attitudes about assisted-death.
“I’ve always felt that way, but I was surprised the membership of the organization had changed,” Cobb said.
CMA is just a community organization to agitate in favor of Obama’s culture of death agenda. In their own words: “The California Medical Association has tracked physician members’ support for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) since it was passed by Congress in 2010. And, while support has been strong since the beginning, with 50 percent of member physicians in favor of health care for all when it first passed in 2010, this percentage has gradually increased over the past two years, reaching 63 percent in 2012.”
Killing people through the courts is not only anti-Christian but a huge slippery-slope. Your heirs and Obamacare Death Panels together put you to death. California had a euthanasia initiative some 20 years ago but it mercifully it was voted down.
CCC: ” 2277 Whatever its motives and means, direct euthanasia consists in putting an end to the lives of handicapped, sick, or dying persons. It is morally unacceptable.
Thus an act or omission which, of itself or by intention, causes death in order to eliminate suffering constitutes a murder gravely contrary to the dignity of the human person and to the respect due to the living God, his Creator.
The error of judgment into which one can fall in good faith does not change the nature of this murderous act, which must always be forbidden and excluded. ”
Read CCC # 2279 regarding palliative care.
Always make your notarized “Health Care Directive” in accord with the Doctrine of the Faith as stated in the CCC.
It would be a shame to go to Hell for eternity – for actions taken near the end of life.
The Federal and State Governments will eventually be making the decisions of who is worthy of health care
and who should die based upon cost.
This is what happens with socialized Government medicine.
Make an official “health care directive” in accord with Church teaching (using the Catechism of the Catholic Church of 1997) – even if a young adult. It is the only defense we will have against being a participant in our own murder/suicide.
Why not assist anyone who is sick and depressed to kill themselves, even children. We don’t care about children unless they can contribute to the collective. Let’s then kill our neighbors because we don’t like them and think they are a little “off”. Suicide is the only rational way for anyone to die… BANG!
Every time the photo of Brittany Maynard is published I get sick to my stomach. Please pay attention: her photo is an advertisement for suicide, whether assisted or not. The World Health Organization has strict guidelines for publicizing suicide because of copycats.
I urge Cal-Catholic to cease displaying Maynard’s photo.
Nina i completely agree. This is a tragedy. Life is so short, if only people would perservere with fortitude.
We are headed down the path set in Europe before the II World War when physicians became corrupt, and cooperated in the elimination of sick, handicapped and inferior races in the millions.
“Let the Lord God show us what way we should take and what we should do.” Jeremiah 42:3
Does anyone among us think that Jesus should have refrained from resurrecting Lazarus from the dead? After all, he was out of his misery and pain that caused that death…
The only death I wish to see is death to the idea of “compassionate assisted sucicide.” Surely, we can offer the sick better than a needle full of poison of a handful of deadly pills. Wake up!