Some Oregon legislators and insurance lobbyists have recently devised another legal way to kill people. It is so inhumane that you would not even treat your pet dog in this way. Just as all bullies do, these legislators have singled out the weak and defenseless.
SB494, if passed, would allow the starving and dehydrating to death of conscious Alzheimer’s, dementia and mentally ill patients. These are patients who are awake, can chew and swallow and want to eat, even though in some cases they may need help in delivering food to their mouths. Current safeguards in Oregon’s law protect these patients from this type of cruelty. This bill take away these safeguards.
End of life decisions are very difficult. Families suffer emotionally as they make decisions as to use or withdraw feeding tubes, possibly place DNR orders, or use heroic treatments. Most of these decisions, however, involve patients in comatose situations, and most of them are free of moral implications. Most of them, also, are end-of-life decisions.
The targets of this bill, Alzheimer’s, dementia and mentally ill patients, however, are not at the end-of- life stage. The problem is, for some, especially insurance companies, they are not dying fast enough.
Families of Alzheimer’s patients have suffered emotionally and physically by the time they finally reach the point of placing their loved one in a memory care unit. Some comfort can be derived from the knowledge that their loved one will be receiving attentive and kind care while in these facilities. Should this bill pass, that peace would vanish.
Please click here to find and write to your State Senator, asking him/her to vote NO on Senate bill 494.
************
Note: Many people have read SB494 for themselves and have been confused, not finding in the bill the dangers we are warning about. I completely understand the confusion as the bill is very complicated and is written in a clever and deceiving way. It is what is being taken OUT of statute that is so dangerous. It is what the bill, if passed, will NOT say.
Important terms are being taken out of statute, and the advance directive, which is now in statute and thus can only be changed by a bill being passed, will be changed so that an unaccountable, appointed board can make any changes to the directive that it wants. This bill is best understood by lawyers specializing in legislative bills.
If you would like a fact sheet on the bill, please email your request to Gayle at ortl@ortl.org
I have questions about the hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding SB 494.
Did someone from Oregon Right to life office attend this hearing?
Please inform me on the current status of this Bill.
Apparently it was sent to WAYS and MEANS.
Is this correct? what happens next.
Having our PAC director email you! 🙂
Do we have a date for this to be debated, or whatever it is that happens next.
This just happened to my mother, with out consent, and right in front of myself and my brother. This is despicable and it is murder. Doctors shrugging their shoulders and saying we don’t know why she was mentally fine two days ago and now she is not.
I have hospital records that show over a period of a couple weeks. My mother was well nourished, then at the end, says, severely malnourished! My mother was full code until one hour before her death. They took her from the room, and she came back actively dying.
That is terrible, horrible, and inhumane. It is wrong in so MANY ways and on so many levels. This is the slippery slope that we have apparently already started on in this country. Who would have ever thought it …
People need to stand up against this.
I hope you can do something and can make them face some responsibility.
I will write/call my senator about this issue.
And also tell as many people as I can. I know a lot of people don’t know this. I am sure they will try to “hide” it and “disguise” it as something it is not -like as “compassion” or some such lying, deceitful way.
So sorry for your loss.
Everyone who reads this needs to spread the word -tell everybody they know -through social media or however they can -this has to be made known so people can protest it and stop it!!
My wife Virginia just narrowly escaped this fate in Minnesota:
A Doctor and hospital ethics committees were reviewing her medical care based on the idea that it would be “futile” for a patient to receive such care.She could not talk,eat,or swallow she was medicated so as to sleep most of the time. I am her DPOA so i lowered the medications and in a few days Virginia was able to speak and i found a different Doctor who talked to Virginia she told him she wanted to live so a feeding tube was put in just days before her TPN was to be removed and she would of had no water or any nourishment. Even a Lawyer as i understand it could not of saved her because it’s the law. This is inhuman the way some Doctors and Ethics committees can legally kill people. I will be opening up a website soon to post articles about this wave of getting rid of people under the guise oh a painless death especially the elders. Any Doctor can stop pain at the time of death.
this is the most disgusting thing I’ve seen. this is the shape of things to come. living in a post Christian world is very depressing. calling them out as murderers is very necessary. i’ve been through the wringer with my mother in the hospital where they tried to murder her. fortunately she survived her hospital stay and is now in a nice nursing home. hospitals are the worst places for the elderly sick to be.
Comments are closed.