i can't believe that patients are falling over themselves in a Catholic Home to commit suicide... that said, if one by chance DOES want to, simply say no and PAY THE FINE!!! what are they gonna do... close the place down???
Posted on 02/26/2007 4:10:34 PM PST by wagglebee
SACRAMENTO, February 26, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Well known bioethics author, Wesley J. Smith, warns in an article posted to the weblog of First Things magazine, that a pending bill in California could threaten the lives of vulnerable elderly and ill patients in nursing homes and hospice care.
Assembly Bill 374, says Smith, under the rubric of “choice” will force in-patient hospice facilities and even Catholic nursing homes to permit assisted suicide. The proposed legislation, he writes, exempts only acute-care hospitals.
While euthanasia advocates claim the changes to the law are only small matters of “tweaking” existing statutes, Smith warns that the result is a piece of coercive legislation that will threaten the lives of patients, undermine the philosophical foundation of hospice care and threaten the autonomy and even the existence of Catholic care facilities.
“If A.B. 374 becomes law, Catholic and other religiously oriented nursing homes will be forced to choose between shutting down, selling, or cooperating in assisted suicide.”
“A.B. 374,” Smith writes, “is patterned generally after the law in Oregon, though the coercion about which I write is not found in the current Oregon law or a concurrently introduced assisted-suicide legalization bill in Vermont, and is an attempt to force most medical and nursing facilities to cooperate in the assisted-suicide regime.”
Smith points to the sections of the bill, 7198 (b) and (e), to be added to the California Health and Safety Code should the legislation pass.
7198 (b) reads: “No professional organization or association, or heath care provider, may subject a person to censure, discipline, suspension, loss of license, loss of privileges, loss of membership, or other penalty for participating or refusing to participate in good faith compliance with this chapter.”
Subsection (e) reads: “Notwithstanding any other provision of law, a general acute care hospital, as defined in subdivision (a) of Section 1250, may prohibit a licensed physician from carrying out a patient’s request under this chapter on the premises of the hospital if the hospital has notified the licensed physician of its policy regarding this chapter.”
As a lawyer with years of experience deciphering legal loopholes in bills related to bioethics issues, Smith asserts that the specific exemption of acute care hospitals as the only place where assisted suicide may be stopped on site, means that the legislation intends to force other types of facilities to allow the practice.
“The legislation must be construed to require that all other health-care facilities cooperate with assisted suicide ¬whether or not they have religious, moral, or philosophical objections,” he writes.
Read the full text of Assembly Bill 374:
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/07-08/bill/asm/ab_0351-0400/ab...
Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Bill Would Authorize Assisted Suicide By Any Other Name in Arizona
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/jan/07011706.html
New Assisted Suicide Bill Introduced in Hawaii Legislature
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/jan/07013004.html
I'm sure the Nazis also claimed that they were just "tweaking" the laws.
Pro-Life/Catholic Ping
Freepmail wagglebee or little jeremiah to subscribe or unsubscribe from the moral absolutes ping list.
FreeRepublic moral absolutes keyword search
PING
Why not just allow the Catholics to bring him to some other medical facility, where it is not against their religion to do an assisted suicide?
Because that would allow Catholics to live according to principles with which liberals do not agree, namely, the sanctity of human life.
An analogy might be Ms. X is pregnant and wants an abortion. You know it is wrong for a catholic to help her procure an abortion, but she wants one really bad, justifies it by saying her mom/grandmother/great aunt/boyfriend/whomever wants it, every rationale in the book, too. So you have a non-Catholic friend/contact/acquaintance who you know will oblige with her wishes and pass her off to them.
I guess the culture of death doesn't think that forcing the Church to murder the innocent is "prohibiting the free exercise" of religion.
Moving a person to a facility where they will be killed IS assisting in their death.
See #10.
Well said.
You really don't get it, do you? Now I know why you think Catholics and other serious Christians could just forget about Rudy's pro-abortion record and vote for him because he's good at managing things.
Very good point. I wasn't thinking of that aspect when I posted.
No big deal.
I agree with those words 100%. What I am about to say I do not support but this is how the government is getting a choke hold on the church in this matter. The church likely takes Medicare & Medicaid funding. If that is true then it makes the Nursing Home bound to the rules of state. Again I do not agree with it but that is how they can do it.
This was one reasons many in here including myself were against the presidents Faith Based Programs. What programs government funds it also controls and eventually destroys. Today the Church ran hospitals and care facilities tomorrow the Pulpit and the message of the clergy.
I would advise families who value life and family say in treatment even to the point where emergency care is refused to make just in case plans. Make such a plan to even if by physical force remove your loved ones from a health care facility on a moments notice. This should be discussed by dependable family members.
You ain't gonna believe this atrocity soon to be arriving from the Left Coast alert!
Very well said, thanks.
i can't believe that patients are falling over themselves in a Catholic Home to commit suicide... that said, if one by chance DOES want to, simply say no and PAY THE FINE!!! what are they gonna do... close the place down???
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.