Assist Your Suicide and Take Your Property!
There’s a culture of death that is permeating throughout the General Assembly that should have us all very concerned. This week we watched as the House Courts of Justice Committee passed HB 980 (D-Herring) and the Senate Education and Health Committee passed SB 733 (D-McClellan), two radical abortion bills that allows non-physicians to perform abortions on women with no oversight and without giving them the full information when they consent. Both bills will now be voted on by the full House and Senate next week, pushing us ever so closer to becoming like New York!
But if passage of bills that will lead to more unborn babies killed in the womb wasn’t extreme enough, Delegate Kay Kory (D-Falls Church) has introduced a bill that would make “physician assisted suicide” (PAS) legal in Virginia. HB 1649 would allow a so-called medical doctor to prescribe an adult diagnosed with a terminal condition medication that ends the life of the patient. All it’ll take for a patient to receive the self-administered oral medicine are two consent forms, one for each dose of medication, signed by the patient, with just one witness.
The Family Foundation of Virginia holds firmly to the belief that every human being has intrinsic dignity and worth, but PAS would reduce people to simply be expendable in society.
Ironically, two other bills, SB 637 (Surovell, D-Mount Vernon) and HB 736 (Watts, D-Alexandria), would reinstate the estate tax, more commonly known as the “death tax.” In fact, Tomorrow, January 24, a Senate Finance Subcommittee will hear HB 736. After a long battle in 2007 to eliminate the death tax, tax-and-spend liberals are doing what they can to capitalize on the earnings of Virginians after their death. Not only is this a double tax on wealth, but it’s also a slap in the face to every hardworking Virginia who wants to leave behind something for their family or friends.
Allowing physician-assisted suicide would undermine the most basic principles of our civil society by exploiting those who are weak and vulnerable. It’s those who are unable to defend themselves, who have no voice and who are weakest that are most at risk of being devalued.
There are untold dangers and potential abuses associated with PSA. For example, in Oregon and California, insurance companies have already been documented telling terminally ill patients that the treatments that might save their life aren’t covered, but doctor-prescribed suicide is.
And the objective of PSA runs contrary to the very purpose of the practice of medicine and those within the profession to care for and extend life, not purposefully end it. Simply put, medicine that’s used to heal should not be used to intentionally accelerate death.
It’s a scary to think that the new Democratic majority, which is pushing for more expansions of Medicaid and a state-run health benefits program, want to allow health care providers and insurance companies to encourage their customers to intentionally take their own life. What’s more, the new Democrat majority wants to reinstate the estate tax so they can reap more taxes from a person’s death, probably to help fund all of their state-run healthcare plans. The closer we move towards a government centered health care program, the closer Virginia comes to forever dictating who lives and who dies.
It’s so important to stand up to this culture of death that is permeating throughout our government and to tell your legislator to oppose these terrible policies.
