Assisted suicide is often pushed these days as inevitable, an agenda that can’t be stopped.
Never mind that theocratic Massachusetts voters said no to assisted suicide in 2012. Oops.
Now, in the wake of a muddled Supreme Court case stating that assisted suicide is not against Montana public policy, the state’s House has passed a bill to make assisted suicide a crime. From HB 477:
Section 1. Physician-assisted suicide — against public policy.
(1) Physician-assisted suicide is against public policy…,
(a) For purposes of this section, “physician-assisted suicide” means any act by a physician or a person acting at the direction of a physician of purposely aiding or soliciting another person to end that person’s life, including prescribing a drug, compound, or substance, providing a medical procedure, or directly or indirectly participating in an act with the purpose of aiding or soliciting that person’s suicide.
(b) The term “physician-assisted suicide” does not include end-of-life palliative care in which a dying person receives medication to alleviate pain that may incidentally hasten the dying person’s death or any act to withhold or withdraw life-sustaining treatment authorized pursuant to Title 50, chapters 9 and 10.
Up to ten years in the hoosegow.
Good. I don’t know its chances in the Senate, but time to explicitly outlaw assisted suicide in Big Sky country!