On the First Things blog, Amanda Shaw posts about Washington’s euthanasia proposal:
….Following are some of the key facts, from the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide:
• The Assisted Suicide Initiative does not require that family members be notified when a doctor is going to help a loved one commit suicide.• The Assisted Suicide Initiative has no safeguards for the patient after the prescription is written.
• The Assisted Suicide Initiative does not insure that abuse or the number of deaths from assisted suicide would ever be known.
• Of the over $3 million donated to the Assisted Suicide Initiative campaign, $2 million has been given by assisted-suicide advocacy groups, and campaign spokesperson former Governor Booth Gardner and his family.
• The Assisted Suicide Initiative would give government health programs, managed care programs and HMOs the opportunity to approve prescriptions for suicide to cut costs.
• The Assisted Suicide Initiative could victimize minorities, people with disabilities and poor people.
The complete text of the Washington Death with Dignity Act is here….
Nonsense.
You can’t legally require family notification because of doctor-patient confidentiality laws.
Reporting and record keeping are required.
Most of the money for the no side has come from out of state catholic organizations.
End-of-life care in hospice is cheap and the cost of health care is unaffected by death with dignity
Ethnicity, class and disability are all irrelevant to the law, it only applies to terminally ill patients.
In 10 years in Oregon with an identical law ths safeguards work. Vote Yes on 1000.
Being an “out of state catholic organization” myself, I find your objections wryly amusing.