California Pro-life Advocates Urge Governor to Veto Assisted Suicide Bill

Pro-life groups are asking California residents to call and to email Gov. Jerry Brown to encourage him to veto a bill that would legalize assisted suicide.

According to LifeNews.com, the California State Senate voted 23-14 to legalize doctor-prescribed suicide. The National Right to Life Committee condemned the vote.

“Friday’s vote shows a blatant disregard for the lives of California’s medically vulnerable citizens and sends a message to these citizens that their lives are less worthy to be lived,” said Carol Tobias, National Right to Life president. “The so-called ‘right-to-die’ movement promotes these laws as simply ‘another medical option’ at the end of life, but their real goal is euthanasia on demand for any reason.”

If Brown signs the bill, California would be the fourth state to legalize doctor-prescribed suicide. The other states are Oregon, Washington and Vermont.

Supporters of the bill say the law is necessary to provide “compassionate aid in dying for terminally ill patients.”

LifeNews.com argues that “nearly every” terminally ill patient who requests death suffers from depression.

“The bill applies to people with a ‘terminal disease,’ which is defined as having less than six months to live.  Most people think this means ‘dying,’” said Margaret Dore, president of Choice is an Illusion.  

“However, in Oregon, which uses a nearly-identical definition of terminal disease, an 18-year-old with insulin-dependent diabetes is ‘eligible’ for assisted suicide.  Doctors are often wrong at predicting life expectancy.  Sadly, this bill encourages people with years, even decades, to live to throw away their lives.”

Publication date: September 23, 2015