Yesterday, the Nevada Senate Health and Human Services Committee voted 3-2 along party lines to approve SB165, a bill to legalize physician assisted suicide, and send it to the Senate for a vote. All three Democrats on the committee, Senators Ratti, Spearman and Woodhouse voted for the bill. The two Republicans on the committee, Senators Hardy and Hammond opposed it. It now goes to the Senate for a vote. Should it pass the Senate it would go to the Assembly for another hearing.
Thanks to everyone who has responded to our alerts. If you haven’t yet, please share your opposition to SB165, physician assisted suicide, at the Legislative Opinion Page and ask others to do so to help keep Nevada from becoming the 8th state to legalize assisted suicide. Please also thank Senators Hardy and Hammond for their votes. We’ll have more information on SB165 as it becomes available.
Take Action. How You Can Help And Keep Helping.
1. Please thank Senators Hardy and Hammond for their votes.
Senator Scott Hammond [email protected]
Senator Joe Hardy [email protected]
Put in the Subject line “Thank You For Your Vote Against SB165, Physician Assisted Suicide.”
2. Register Your Opposition To This Deadly Bill At The Legislative Opinion Site.
b. Under the heading “Select a Bill and Enter Your Opinion” go to “Select a Bill” and choose SB165.
c. You can also leave a message, long or short (See background below for ideas).
3. Read and share some of the articles noted at the bottom of this email regarding SB165 that have been in the NV Media.
4. Visit Facebook pages – Nevada Right to Life and Nevadans Against Assisted Suicide. Like these pages and share the posts on SB165 and Assisted Suicide.
Opposition to Assisted Suicide, SB165 in the news:
Watch Dr. Brian Callister and PRAF’s Kristen Hansen Discuss SB165 with Sam Shad on NV Newsmakers.
Read Deidre Hammon’s article Doctor-assisted suicide invites discrimination against poor, disabled
Read Dr. Brian Callister’s article, Candy coating physician-assisted killing
Read NV Columnist Thomas Mitchell’s Column: Assisted suicide bill creates perverse incentives
Dr. Kirk Bronander’s recent RGJ Op-ed is behind a pay wall at the RGJ.
Notable Quotations:
The ancient Hippocratic Oath says, “I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel.”
The American Medical Association says that “permitting physicians to engage in assisted suicide would ultimately cause more harm than good. Physician-assisted suicide is fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer, would be difficult or impossible to control, and would pose serious societal risks.” Code of Medical Ethics Opinions 5.7
Anthropologist Margaret Mead “society always is attempting to make the physician into a killer – to kill the defective child at birth, to leave the sleeping pills beside the bed of the cancer patient… It is the duty of society to protect the physician from such requests.”
