We are a diverse coalition of Californians from across the political spectrum and from every walk of life; we recognize the danger to individuals and society when medicine is licensed by the government to be used to kill.
In September of 2015 a proposal to authorize assisted suicide in California failed in the California legislature. An obscure procedure was used whereby a separate, extraordinary session dedicated to saving MediCal funds was hijacked and with the complicity of the Speaker of the Assembly, the assisted suicide measure was pushed through the “MediCal Savings” Health Committee.
Ironically the Assembly passed the measure that redefines suicide and promotes assisted suicide during National Suicide Prevention Week! The Governor then signed the measure.
California law allows citizens to examine measures passed by the legislature and signed by the Governor before they go into law. For 90 days after signature, the citizenry may also examine the bill and its implications and collect signatures to request that it be brought to the people to vote on at the next General Election.
That process has begun. You can find out more about assisted suicide, the measure itself (AB X 2- 15), and how you can help us preserve the laws protecting the emotionally vulnerable, and preserve the ethical standard that has made medicine an honorable profession through the ages: the resolute commitment to “Do No Harm.”
Emotions and terminal conditions
We recognize what Elizabeth-Kubler Ross pointed out years ago in On Death and Dying. The most powerful emotions we will ever face come when you are given a terminal diagnosis. She famously outlined the five stages of grief regularly encounter by both patient and family: Denial/Anger/Bargaining/Depression and then after overcoming those, one can come to Acceptance.
Dr. Kubler-Ross counseled thousands of patients and their family through these emotional challenges and to peaceful acceptance.
She said this of assisted suicide:
Lots of my dying patients say they grow in bounds and leaps, and finish all the unfinished business. [But assisting a suicide is] cheating them of these lessons, like taking a student out of school before final exams. That’s not love, it’s projecting your own unfinished business.
[“Kubler-Ross, Loving Life, Easing Death,”USA Today, Monday, November 30, 1992, p.6D]