Sacramento, Calif., Sep 4, 2008 / 21:47 pm
A pending bill in the California state legislature could force Catholic doctors and others opposed to assisted suicide to inform terminally ill patients of several facts, including that they have the “right of refusal or withdrawal from life-sustaining treatment.”
The bill’s official title is the “California Right to Know End-of-Life Act of 2008,” though the Sacramento Bee has characterized it as “right-to-die legislation.”
Assembly Bill 2747 is an amended version of a euthanasia bill previously proposed By Assemblywoman Patty Berg, a Democrat from Eureka, the California Catholic Daily reports.
Opponents called the first version a “stealth assisted-suicide bill.” It would have allowed doctors to administer “palliative sedation” to induce a coma and to starve patients to death under a provision called “voluntary stopping of eating and drinking.”