The Scary Truth About AB 2747

AB 2747 would allow a doctor or a nurse to guess that a patient has "less than one year to live," and then ask the patient if they would like a pain-free death known as "palliative sedation." This will result in depressed patients dying from dehydration within five days. They will literally shrivel to death, worse treatment than doomed animals at the pound.

AB 2747 is the assisted suicide bill returning back to you in another form. This time, instead of administering a lethal injection, AB 2747 would accomplish the same thing - quick death - through redefining and misusing the rare medical treatment known as "palliative sedation." Palliative sedation should only be used when death is imminent – within hours or days - and pain medication is not enough. Even if sleep-inducing drugs were used, nutrition and hydration should not be removed. Removing food and water will cause an unnatural, as opposed to natural, death.

Yet AB 2747 would change the law to allow a physician or nurse to pressure shocked and depressed patients into a quick death. By redefining palliative sedation into a vehicle for assisted suicide, AB 2747 would transform doctors and nurses into killers, not healers or comforters. Just as the assisted-suicide bills of the last three years have been rejected, so should the California Legislature reject AB 2747. Assisted suicide lessens the value of human life.

People who are ill need support, spiritual care, and counseling if they are depressed and want to end their lives prematurely. Assisted suicide will ensure the death of innocent Californians at the hands of an increasingly unscrupulous insurance industry which regards dead people as cheaper to take care of. Jim Cook, Democrat for California State Assembly, 10th district understands the importance of this bill and will support Californians against it. He more than any other candidate wants to help spread this awareness and truth of AB 2747.

www.jimcook.org