A bill to legalize doctor-prescribed suicide in Alaska has been scheduled for public testimony, via teleconference, on Thursday, April 9 at 3 p.m. House Bill 99, sponsored by Anchorage Democrats Rep. Harriet Drummond, Rep. Andy Josephson and Rep. Max Gruenberg, would permit doctors to prescribe lethal drugs to patients for the purpose of suicide.
Opponents of the practice believe that patients – including those with terminal illness – need proper care, not destruction.
Anchorage Archbishop Roger Schwietz, who leads 30,000 Catholics across Southcentral Alaska, strongly opposes the bill, saying it is not about granting people a so-called “right to die,” but pushing “doctors to prescribe lethal drugs to kill people.”
“In a state with a suicide rate twice the national average, we are now proposing that it should be legal in some instances,” Archbishop Schwietz told the Catholic Anchor. “What kind of message does this send to our youth? In their young minds, they look at life without the practical experience that comes from age. They may view their situation as equally depressing or as terminal as someone with an illness. They see no way out. ‘If it’s okay for those who have no hope of regaining their health to kill themselves, why can’t I?’”
The proposed Alaska bill is part of a national drive by an outside group called Compassion & Choices, formerly the Hemlock Society. To date, doctor-prescribed suicide is legal in Oregon, Washington, Vermont and Montana.
In a press release on her HB 99, Drummond lauded the Oregon law in particular, which has resulted in over 300 deaths since 1998.
Access Alaska, a disability advocacy group in Anchorage, posted a strongly worded rebuttal to doctor-prescribed suicide shortly after Drummond introduced HB 99.
“What looks to some like a choice to die begins to look more like a duty to die to many disability activists,” Access Alaska posted to its Facebook page. “If the values of liberty dictate that society legalizes assisted suicide, then legalize it for everyone who asks for it, not just the devalued old, ill and disabled. Otherwise, what looks like freedom is really only discrimination.”
The post was a quotation from Diane Coleman, president and CEO of Not Dead Yet¸ a national disability rights group that opposes doctor-prescribed suicide.
Click here to read a detailed article about the HB 99.
Click here for information about how to offer public comment on HB 99.
'Bill to legalize assisted suicide in Alaska scheduled for public comment' have 1 comment
April 2015 @ 10:08 pm Jacob
The idea is Hitlerian, yet familiar. It is another awful attempt to establish a right to put to death yet another sector of our society’s most vulnerable, once again under the guise of “compassion” and “choice.” If all of these death-worshiping progressives and fools in so-called Congress would simply leave the country, it would be a great compassion on us all. They will feel more at home with their fellow choicers in Holland, and we in America wouldn’t have to listen to the seemingly endless chasm of their nonsense.