By Wesley J. Smith
Assisted suicide is often pushed these days as inevitable, an agenda that canāt be stopped. Never mind that theocraticĀ 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 stateās Ā House has passed a bill to make assisted suicide a crime. From HB 477:
Section 1. Physician-assisted suicide ā against public policy. (1) Physician-assisted suicide is against public policyā¦, (a) For purposes of this section, āphysician-assisted suicideā 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 personās life, including prescribing a drug, compound, or substance, providing a medical procedure, or directly or indirectlyĀ participating in an act with the purpose of aiding or soliciting that personās suicide.
(b) The term āphysician-assisted suicideā does not include end-of-life palliative care in which a dying person receives medication to alleviate pain that may incidentally hasten the dying personās death or any act to withhold or withdraw life-sustaining treatment authorized pursuant to Title 50, chapters 9 and 10.Ā
Up to ten years in the hoosegow. Good.
I donāt know its chances in the Senate, but time to explicitly outlaw assisted suicide in Big Sky country!
Editorās note. This appeared on Wesleyās fine blog.