Does this new CA physician-assisted suicide law encourage killing even as it calls it something else? Who benefits? What does this encourage in terms of experiencing? In terms of self-centeredness? In terms of seeing clearly ongoing change, nonself and the unsatisfactoriness in seeking permanence and self?

Here are some thoughts by a California MD:

"Our state’s physician-assisted suicide law instantly removes penal-code protections from a vulnerable segment of the population deemed “terminally ill.” The law allows anyone labeled as terminally ill to request assisted suicide—but it also accepts heirs and the owners of caregiving facilities to formally witness such requests, even though the probate code does not even accept “interested” parties as witnesses to a will.

The law does not require an attending physician to refer the patient for psychological assessment. It thus does not allow for screening for possible coercion, or for underlying mental conditions that could be behind the suicide request—unless the patient has signs of mental problems, which may not be visible to a suicide-specialist doctor they may not even know. In these and other ways, the law devastates elder-abuse law and mental-health legal protections, and it deprives those labeled as terminally ill of equal-protection rights that all other Americans enjoy."

For the rest of this article see:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/why-are-they-trying-to-make-us-kill-our-patients-1469395442

How do you see this matter? How has this come up in your life? In the lives of those close to you?