California Looking to AID, ADVISE, & ENCOURAGE Assisted Suicide

The California legislature is considering legislation that would decriminalize "aiding, advising, and encouraging" physician-assisted suicide 

California has gone so far as to require state-run mental hospitals to provide assisted suicide drugs to any patient that requests them—including patients who are hospitalized because of a suicide threat or attempt.

from Alexandra Snyder Executive Director AB 282 (Jones-Sawyer) expressly exempts from criminal prosecution "aiding, advising, or encouraging" physician-assisted suicide. The bill’s authors allege that the bill is merely a “technical clean-up” to the Penal Code after the implementation of the "End of Life Option Act" in 2016. In reality, AB 282 allows actions that the authors of the End of Life Option Act promised the public would not be permitted—namely placing pressure on vulnerable patients to prematurely end their lives. Medical literature indicates that up to 77% of people diagnosed with a terminal illness suffer from major depression. A study published in the Journal of Clinical Psychology found a “statistically significant association between clinical depression and the desire for hastened death.” Under ABA 282, terminally ill patients—many of whom are suffering from depression, anxiety, and other mental health conditions—will be aided, advised, or encouraged to request and ingest a lethal prescription. Decriminalizing behavior that leads someone to be talked into committing suicide violates the State's obligation to protect people from self-harm. The End of Life Option Act also permits a person who stands to benefit from the patient's death (such as a health care facility owner or beneficiary) to sign a patient’s request for aid-in-dying drugs. AB 282 would allow an "interested witness" to legally aid, advise, and encourage a patient to commit suicide—and sign off on the method of suicide—while gaining finacially from the patient’s death. Life Legal is challenging California's physician-assisted suicide law and we need YOUR help! California lawmakers are trying to do everything in their power to facilitate suicide for patients who need real medical care. Our next hearing in the assisted suicide case is schedule for May 15 and we are scheduled to go to trial this Fall! So much is at stake and we are very grateful for your faithful prayers and support!    Contact the CA Senate Public Safety Committee and urge members to VOTE NO on AB 282. Phone: (916) 651-4118 Fax: (916) 445-4688   The mission of Life Legal Defense Foundation (LLDF) is to give innocent and helpless human beings of any age, particularly unborn children, a trained and committed defense against the threat of death, and to support their advocates in the nation’s courtrooms. LLDF will accomplish its mission and purpose through the law and education.  For more information or to make a donation to help them with their work, please use this link.