The Nevada Legislature has decided the Silver State is behind the times with respect to assisted suicide / medical homicide (your pick folks). State Democrats have introduced SB 189 which helps your MD stay out of jail if either of you decide to speed up your passage to eternity. Not so well publicized is corollary legislation, SB 165, a little Valentine's Day present to hospitals with beds tied up by terminally ill patients. Wesley Smith describes how it's supposed to work:
Imagine your mother is in the hospital. She has written an advance medical directive instructing that her life be maintained even if things look very bleak. She has told you personally in an intense and intimate conversation, that she wants you to make sure everything is done to let her fight for her life.
A year later, your mother has a stroke and is fighting for life in an ICU. You try to do as she wanted, you instruct her doctors to maintain her life. But they say no. She is very unlikely to recover, and even if she does, she will be seriously disabled. Her “time” has come, they say. And then, they unilaterally remove her life support over your strenuous objections.Can't put a dollar value on life? Oh yes you can and if this goes through we're going to find out exactly what it is.
Up in Canada, they're way ahead of us on this one. It started in Quebec, billed as a progressive measure, but all along the dirty little secret was it was really all about saving money. Now, Canucks figure they're going to save better than $100M a year putting patients down. It's gotten way out of hand in Belgium and Holland where "assisted suicide" is now the norm and even the advocates are alarmed by the results.
This is always billed as "dying with dignity" but it doesn't work out that way for an awful lot of people, if experience elsewhere is any guide. Beware the law of unintended consequences.
-- Mike Power
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