Oppose AB 282 legalizing murder for profit in California
Oppose AB 282, which makes it legal to pressure suicide
Bill Status: SIGNED
On September 5, 2018, AB 282 legalizing murder by suicide was signed without comment by Democrat Governor Jerry Brown.
Bill History:
On August 20, this dangerous bill passed the Democrat-controlled State Assembly. Voting yes were 52 Democrats (all but 3 non-voting Democrats) + 2 Republicans (Catharine Baker of Contra Costa/Alameda counties and Brian Maienschein of San Diego/north San Diego County).
On August 6, this pro-euthanasia bill passed the California State Senate. All 25 Democrats voted yes, while 9 Republicans voted no and 5 others did not vote: Noes: Bates, Chang, Gaines, Moorlach, Morrell, Nguyen, Stone, Vidak, Wilk; No Votes Recorded: Anderson, Berryhill, Cannella, Fuller, Nielsen.
In 2015, Democrat politicians in Sacramento legalized “assisted suicide.” There is no requirement for a witness at death, and no requirement to self-administer. What’s more, it permits forgery of a final attestation form and a false cause of death on a death certificate.
The Democrat-sponsored
AB 282 (authored by Jones-Sawyer) will:
» Exempt from criminal prosecution "aiding, advising, or encouraging" physician-assisted suicide. In other words, a bad doctor or nurse can pressure you to die.
» Allow someone who could financially benefit from your death to actually sign an order giving you suicide pills. This allows murder for profit.
» Expressly exempts from criminal prosecution "aiding, advising, or encouraging" physician-assisted suicide.
Here's what the Life Legal Defense Foundation (LLDF) says about AB 282: The California legislature is considering legislation that would decriminalize "aiding, advising, and 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 financially from the patient’s death.
