The bill (A3328) would allow doctors to prescribe lethal doses of drugs to patients with under six months to live.
Patients would self-administer the drugs after requesting them verbally and then writing, signed by two witnesses, 15 days later.
After that, the doctor would have to offer the patient a chance to rescind the request and recommend the patient's next of kin be notified. A second doctor would then have to certify the original doctor's diagnosis and affirm that the patient is acting voluntarily and capable of making the decision.
Patients deemed to have impaired judgment would not be eligible, and the doctors would be required to refer them to counseling. And health care facilities would be able to prohibit their doctors from writing the prescriptions.
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NJ Voters Support Doctor-Assisted Suicide, Poll Shows
For people who have the cognitive understanding and desire to control their own lives, this is an important law. With built-in protections, it can prevent some truly awful suffering from failed suicide attempts.
ReplyDeletePatients deemed to have impaired judgment? Well, maybe that's the intent, but we know the intent will get buried.
ReplyDeleteI think most people who support assisted suicide don't know the depth of it.
ReplyDeleteI have to say that because of what I have learned about the 102 yr old Mary Sudovar matter, where Mary was taken from CareOne and then put in to the home of her daughter Kathleen Sudovar Proulx, as Mary was then dehydrated, starved, and give a potentially lethal dose of narcotics,for no other reason other than Mary was old, and survived the attempt to put her down and where as Mary lived an immensly enjoys her court limited one hour a week visits because of Judge Margaret Mcveigh of the Paterson Superior courts decisions in all of this, assissted suicide is not something I could ever support.
ReplyDeleteThe systematic looting of Mary's estate that has already gone in to the pockets of of the very ones who would benefit from Mary's passing is a prima facia example of what is wrong with this proposal, it has no checks and balances in it that would stop the exploitation of those who fall vicitm to a macabre cast of conspirators and a judge that Mary has fallen under the control of!