One California doctor eager to help people commit suicide if they want to do so, and if they meet certain, rather subjective, qualifications, has his clinic ready to open on the date the CA law goes into effect on Thursday,June 9, 2016. Interestingly, the new California Suicide Law became law in large part thanks to the state’s self-identifying Catholic Governor.
Just in case there is ever a doubt in anyone’s mind; Yes, it does matter and it does make a difference when we Catholic business, professional, political, medical and educational leaders strive to know, pray and live our faith — the principles of our faith— every single day. THAT’s “generating a return on principle,” as the Catholic Business Journal motto reads. But not everyone sees it this way. (How God sees it, of course, is what counts)
On October 5, 2015, California became the fourth state in the U.S. with a state law allowing doctors to prescribe lethal doses of medications to terminally ill patients. It goes into effect Thursday, June 9, 2016, and Dr. Lonny Shavelson in Berkeley, CA, is quick to be among the first to open a new suicide clinic. His name is splashed in headlines in nearly every major media outlet, so publicity isn’t a problem for him.
Reading and hearing the media blurbs and clips leading up to June 9, it’s easy to find much rhetoric regarding “end-of-life options,” “right-to-die,” and so forth, but it really is difficult to imagine anything more anti-life—more violently opposed to an acknowledgment of God’s role as Creator and to the eternal, unrepeatable, unique dignity of each individual human life—than physician-assisted suicide.
And by the way, it’s not cheap to commit suicide these days. The cost of an initial consultation at Shavelson’s clinic, according to the Mercury News: $200. The cost of going forward with physician-assisted suicide: $1,800.
As mentioned earlier, physician-assisted suicide gained legal blessing in California last year thanks in large part to a former Jesuit seminarian, California Governor Jerry Brown; a man who often makes reference to his Catholic faith around election time and yet who consistently exhibits a habit of violating the most basic tenets of Catholic doctrine and common sense—especially regarding the dignity of human life—nearly every opportunity that comes his way. This was echoed again when Gov Brown signed the physician-assisted suicide bill into law last year.
Rejecting the logic, reasoning and pleas of Catholic bishops, other religious leaders, medical doctors, champions of disability rights and others who opposed the legislation, Gov. Brown, age 77, says he decided to sign the bill after pondering his own mortality.
The president of the pro-suicide group that calls itself Compassion & Choices, Barbara Coombs Lee, hailed Brown’s decision as “the biggest victory for the death-with-dignity movement since Oregon passed the nation’s first law two decades ago. Enactment of this law in California means we are providing this option to more than 1 in 10 Americans.”
But Brown ignored warnings that some people would be pressured into suicide, said state Sen. Bob Huff (R-San Dimas).
“Let’s call this for what it really is: It’s not death with dignity. This is state-assisted death, physician-assisted death and relative-assisted death,” Sen. Huff continued.
“This is a dark day for California and for the Brown legacy,” agreed Tim Rosales, a spokesman for Californians Against Assisted Suicide. “As someone of wealth and access to the world’s best medical care and doctors, the governor’s background is very different from that of millions of Californians living in healthcare poverty without that same access—these are the people and the families potentially hurt by giving doctors the power to prescribe lethal overdoses to patients,” Mr. Rosales added.
Similar legislation was defeated in California by the voters in 1992. And earlier this year, 2015, it was defeated in the state Assembly by all Republican legislators (who cited moral objections), and by some Democrat legislators (who cited religious views or experiences in which family members who were given months to live by doctors but who had instead lived for years).
What many news outlets are not mentioning is that California’s physician-assisted suicide bill was resurrected several weeks ago in a special session called under the pretext of finding funding for healthcare programs. Gov. Brown did express dismay that it was hastened through a special session of the legislature and not approved by the majority of state Assembly members (not that this prevented the governor from signing it into law anyway, however).
Other states with laws that allow physicians to prescribe lethal doses of medication to terminally ill patients are: Oregon (1997), Washington (2009), Vermont (2013).
Two more states do not have such a law, but do have court precedent that is cited by advocates: Montana (2009) has a court case ruling that doctors are protected if they write a lethal medication prescription per a terminally ill patient’s request and in New Mexico (2014) a judge ruled that residents who are terminally ill have a constitutional right to obtain aid in dying, however New Mexico’s attorney general is appealed the ruling.
End of life bill and who’s responsible for it
yes, Ultimately the pseudo .Catholic Governor, Brown, signed the bill, but it was renegade Republicans who delivered it to him. Danville Assemblywoman, Catharine Baker is claiming the Honora on that. She has stated to the mediate at it washer amendments that encouraged Republicans and reluctant Dems to vote “yes.”
her amendments do not protect the patient but they do protect the bill from any attempt to veto it and that was its purpose.
camille Giglio