An aggressive attempt to make assisted suicide the law in California is down for the count for this state legislative session and a key strategist predicts it may well founder even if proponents bring it to the voters in an initiative.
This was one of the strongest attempts to legalize assisted suicide this year and its apparent defeat heartened Catholics, disability rights activists, and advocates for poor and uninsured people.
"At the end of the day the proponents couldn’t find even twenty votes to publicly support this bill," Tim Rosales, spokesman for Californians Against Assisted Suicide, said of the eighty-person Assembly. "We had an overwhelming amount of the Assembly oppose this bill. As soon as they realized this was not about the right to die but about doctors killing people, support for this legislation evaporated as it always has."
The bill’s sponsors plan to use a parliamentary maneuver to bring the bill to the Senate but Rosales predicted that is a losing proposition.
"Through the good lobbying efforts of lots of grassroots folks, we have definitely convinced them they do not have the votes to bring it up," said Ned Dolesji, executive director of the California Catholic Conference. [Source Ignatius Insight]
3 comments
Is it moral to support the passage of a limited assisted suicide bill? One that permits any lawmaker who is about to vote for an assisted suicide bill to commit suicide before he or she votes?
Just asking.
I propose a compromise to the Right to Die crowd:
I promise we will all die, if they promise not to hasten the process.
if a person is suffering and there is no cure for that suffering and the only way for the pain to end is for them to die with dignity should they not do it
would u allow someone that you love to needlessly suffer because you where to selfish to allow them to leave u behind