Washington's Assisted Suicide Proposal Gains Ground

The Text of this Ballot Initiative is Available Here:

http://www.secstate.wa.gov/elections/initiatives/text/i1000.pdf

Please oppose this bill by contacting your state Representatives. For more information on how to help oppose this venture, you can also go to: http://noassistedsuicide.com/

I-1000 Campaign Seeks to Sell Voters on Death

By Joel Connelly 

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/connelly/357023_joel31.html

 

Stand Against AB2747: Legislation that Forces Healthcare Providers to Give Biased End-Of-Life Information to Their Patients: 

   

    If you live in California, please call the state Legislature and inform them that you do not support legislation that would require physicians to give their patients information that encourages the refusal of medical treatment, self-starvation or terminal sedation before other methods of pain control and medical intervention have been fully explored. This legislation would require that these options be presented, along with information about hospice care, to patients diagnosed as having up to a year to live. This leaves much room for misdiagnosis regarding the patient's life expectancy and makes shocked patients vulnerable to psychological sabotage when they are not given an equal amount of information about non-sedating methods of pain control and/or additional medical options, including surgical, homeopathic, or medicinal intervention. This is particularly problematic for patients whose financial or insurance situation may predispose them to choose the above-referenced options as being least expensive in comparison with more expensive, new forms of medical attention. These patients should be given all the information that they need to attain financial assistance for any procedures they may wish to explore. The last part of AB2747, which requires physicians to provide transfer recommendations immediately when they do not agree with their patients' initial choices, could impede the communication of this information in an equally encouraging manner.  

Both the amended and original text of this bill or available here:

AS AMENDED:

http://info.sen.ca.gov/pub/07-08/bill/asm/ab_2701-2750/ab_2747_bill_20080325_

amended_asm_v98.html

AS INTRODUCED

http://info.sen.ca.gov/pub/07-08/bill/asm/ab_2701-2750/ab_2747_bill_2008022

_introduced.html

 

The Following is an Article on AB2747  by Disability Rights Activist, Marylyn 

http://www.capitolweekly.net/article.php?_adctlid=

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wbq8h4b&done=search.php%3Fsearchparams%3Da%253A5%253A%

257Bs%253A9%253A%2522issuedate%2522%253BN%253Bs%253A6%

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Support Protective Laws!!!

Tell your legislators to support these amendments to the current futile care law in Texas:

• SB 439 in the Senate
  
• HB 1094 in the House

These amendments in the Texas Futile Care Law will require doctors/hospitals to treat patients until another hospital can be found to take them as a transfer patient. This means that doctors and hospitals will not be lawfully allowed to discontinue treatment/nourishment without the patient's consent.

Hate Crimes Law:

This law will add disability to the list of characteristics covered under hate crime legislation, along with LGBT individuals. This could have a major impact on protecting the disabled from crimes against them, and, as it is written, does not restrict freedom of speech. Call your Congressman and support it today!

• S-1105: Matthew Shepard Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007
  
  
• HR-1592: Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007

Protecting Children/those with neurological handicaps and the general public from abuse on the internet:

• Fox News: Woman Emotionally Abuses Teenager, Girl Kills Self

Crises overseas A woman in Saudi Arabia faces corporal punishment via whipping and a jail sentence for riding in an unrelated man's car when a gang rape occurred. Please contact world leaders, Amnesty International, and the United Nations about this travesty and ask them to intervene. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7096814.stm

FREE OUR ELDERS!

Support Elder Rights in Massachusetts

FACT SHEET

AN ACT PROTECTING PERSONS UNDER DISABILITY AND THEIR PROPERTY

ARTICLE V OF PROPOSED UNIFORM PROBATE CODE FOR MASSACHUSETTS

S. 843, Judiciary Committee

Present Law: Frail elders and others whose ability to manage on their own is somewhat diminished are at risk of losing all of their liberty and what may remain of their personal dignity. This is because our guardianship statute is seriously out of step with modern understandings of incapacity. Presently, when a guardianship petition is filed, the Probate and Family Court has three standards from which to choose in determining whether a guardian is necessary: mental illness, mental retardation or inability to communicate due to physical incapacity.

Guardians are appointed without any specific findings concerning the ways in which a person may be unable to care for him or herself. Without such findings, guardians' powers are rarely limited in any way. As a result, incapacitated individuals often lose much more of their independence than may be necessary. In addition, individuals who are subject to the appointment of a guardian are almost never present or represented at the court proceedings in which they stand to lose much, if not all, of their liberty. Add this to the fact that present law does not require any inquiry into the fitness of the proposed guardian, and the result is that a person bent on using guardianship to exploit a frail individual is likely to succeed.

What This Bill Does: This bill will protect frail individuals in several critical ways. It removes the standards of mental illness and inability to communicate due to physical incapacity from the law. It creates a new standard for an "incapacitated person," which is based on a clinically diagnosed condition that results in an inability to provide for basic personal needs. A petition for guardianship and the accompanying medical certificate would have to contain detailed facts about the way a person is unable to take care of himself or herself.

The court would be required to make specific findings of incapacity before appointing a guardian, and the guardian's powers must be limited to the specific needs of the legally incapacitated person. In most cases, the proposed ward would be entitled to be present at the hearing, and to appointment of counsel. The Court must find that the guardian is qualified before appointment. To the extent possible, the guardian shall encourage the incapacitated person to participate in decisions, to act on his or her own behalf and to regain the capacity to manage personal affairs. A guardian could not admit a ward to a nursing home without specific Court approval. Once appointed, guardians must submit detailed annual reports regarding the ward's mental, social and physical conditions. Under the bill, a guardian can only be granted appropriate authority over the person of the ward. The bill sets out similar standards and procedures for appointment of a conservator if authority is required over the estate of an incapacitated person.

The bill has been assigned to the Joint Committee on the Judiciary, and a hearing will be scheduled later this year.

 

UPDATE:

This Bill continues to linger in a subcommittee of the Massachusetts Judiciary. Please call Speaker Sal Di Masi at 617 722 -2000 and urge him to support the bill. H. 1633, S. 843

For More Information Contact:
Wynn Gerhard of the Massachusetts Guardianship Task Force at Greater Boston Legal Services, 197 Friend Street, Boston MA 02114, 617-603-1577