California Enacts Suicide Law Based on British Euthanasia

September 30, 2009 (LPAC)—A California assisted-suicide bill that went into effect at the beginning of this year was pushed through by the British-based euthanasia movement that also wrote the end-of-life counseling provisions of the Federal legislation promoted by the Obama administration.

The California bill was critiqued in a National Review article (Septmber 21, 2009) by the anti-euthanasia writer Wesley Smith.

In its original form, Assembly Bill 2747 explicitly authorized patients to be killed by "palliative sedation," defined in the bill as using narcotics for "making the patient unaware and unconscious, while artificial food and hydration are withheld..."

This killing procedure, known alternatively as terminal sedation, or continuous deep sedation, is currently in use as a cost-saving measure in Britain under the National Health Service's Liverpool Care Pathway protocol, and reportedly accounts for tens of thousands of victims annually.

As practiced in Britain, the criminal procedure does not need the consent of the victim or the victim's family. Introduced as an experiment under Prime Minister Tony Blair, it was pressed into national use by the King's Fund agency under the personal supervision of Prince Charles. According to an editorial letter written by a group of doctors and medical experts, sent to and published in the Daily Telegraph, these British Royal-directed measures of involuntary euthanasia accounted for one of every six deaths in the United Kingdom from 2007-2008. (For more watch: LPACTV: Royal Killers M.D.)

In the bill's final form as passed and signed by Governor Arnold Schwarzeneger, the words "palliative sedation" and the accompanying definition were deleted from the list of suicide measures medical personnel are supposed to suggest to patients. But this killing method is not prohibited in the law as passed, and it is being actively promoted within the medical establishment at hospitals and hospices in the U.S.A.

AB 2747 was introduced by legislators associated with the Compassion & Choices organization, formerly known as the Hemlock Society. The same group has claimed credit for authoring the notorious end-of-life counseling Section 1233 of U.S. House Bill 3200. Britain's Dereck Humphrey started the Hemlock Society in the U.S. on the initiative of the Voluntary Euthanasia Society, the old Nazi-era British mother of the world euthanasia movement.