New Effort to Legalize Physician-Assisted Suicide

By |Published On: August 21, 2015|Categories: News|

Discussing the AB 2X-15 BillThis past July, the California state assembly struck down AB 128, a bill that would have allowed doctors to prescribe lethal doses of drugs to mentally competent, terminally ill patients. But it’s demise was short-lived. Now, right-to-die advocates have re-packaged virtually the same bill as part of a special legislative session on health-care funding (this means the new bill, AB 2x-15, will bypass the Assembly Health Committee where it stalled last month over growing personal and religious concerns). Disability advocates, like my friend Marilyn Golden, are alarmed that such a bill is being considered in a setting devoted to health-care financing. “That should be truly frightening to those on subsidized health care, who quite logically fear a system where prescribing suicide pills could be elevated to a treatment option,” said Marilyn, who also is a senior policy analyst with Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund. This week, right-to-die advocates are inundating California state assembly members with phone calls and emails supporting assisted suicide bill AB 2x-15. If you live in California, or know someone who does, I encourage you to call your California assembly representative and tell them that AB 2x-15 should NOT be given consideration – to help you, here is a list of the California assembly members.

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