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The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) has published a report including the number of individuals known to have taken their lives under California's end of life bill. The law requires the CDPH to provide annual reports about the effects of the law. 111 people have died after taking prescribed aid-in-dying drugs from June 9th, 2016 to December 31st, 2016 (subsequent reports will cover full calendar years):
The law — which allows terminally ill adults to obtain life-ending drugs from their doctors — took effect on June 9, 2016. Between then and the end of the year, 191 people received prescriptions under the act and 111 people died after taking prescribed aid-in-dying drugs, according to a report released Tuesday by the California Department of Public Health.
In that time period, a total of 258 people began the end-of-life process under the law, which requires patients to make two verbal requests to their doctors at least 15 days apart.
Previously: California Legislature Approves Bill Legalizing Physician-Assisted Suicide - UK Reject Similar Law
California to Permit Assisted Suicide Starting June 9th, Could Raise Smoking Age to 21
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 30 2017, @02:12PM (6 children)
It's none of my business if you want to die on your own terms. That's between you and whoever or whatever you care about. I, nor the State, have any right to have a say in this.
How it is done, that is a different matter, but that it needs to be available is clear. After all, if it isn't made available in one way or another, people will just get themselves up a high point and lob themselves off or turn open their gas stove and sit back for an hour or so before lighting a cigarette. There are a myriad of ways in which to top yourself and since they exist, why not make it possible to go gently instead of painfully?
If you are mentally capable and have, under your own and full mental capacity, decided you do not want to live anymore and have expressed this desire over a sufficiently long period of time, then you should have the ability to end your life. If you so choose, you should have the ability to have someone assist you with this in such a way that this assistant faces no legal troubles, as you may not be able to do this yourself physically.
Anyone preventing you from executing on this is inflicting a cruel punishment upon you and frankly, a meddling fucktard.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 30 2017, @02:39PM
The more precise definition is: criminal.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 30 2017, @04:13PM (3 children)
Is there a difference between regular suicide and medically-assisted from the standpoint of the insurance companies? Lots of policies won't pay out to the surviving spouse and kin if the policy holder commits suicide. Would they pay out in this case if their death was medically-assisted and state-sanctioned?
(Score: 1) by kanweg on Friday June 30 2017, @05:51PM (1 child)
If the money is withheld so as to avoid desperate people from killing themselves and leaving their spouse with some money, that might be OK. But now the insurance companies get to KEEP the money, if I'm correct. Now they are the beneficiaries of the suicide. It should be arranged that in such a case the money invested is returned to the spouse, and the remainder of the money goes to some charity (e.g. a suicide prevention foundation). That the insurance companies get to keep the money is terrible and should be illegal.
....
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday June 30 2017, @06:01PM
Fortunately, here on the internet we have the fix for that. First, change your moral opinions so that you aren't wasting time on this windmill. Second, keep in mind that the insurance company a) no longer gets paid once someone dies, and b) can't charge as much in premiums when costs go down. That means less profits in the long run.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 30 2017, @06:35PM
I see this as an opportunity for the health insurance and life insurance companies to negotiate a mutually beneficial agreement.
Health insurance would save much more money than what the life insurance would be able to make from a few more months of premiums. The health insurance companies could simply pay the life insurance premiums so the patients wouldn't spend extra time waiting to die in a hospital.
(Score: 1) by purple_cobra on Friday July 07 2017, @10:00PM
I couldn't agree more.
There have been a few attempts to get a similar law passed in the UK, but the safeguards against the potential for it assisted suicide being requested as the result of duress have never been felt to be strong enough. You also get the usual suspects - the interminably religious - claiming that we'd be terminating mildly disabled children left, right and centre and point-blank refusing to read the legislation to learn that this would be impossible. Similar to the abortion issue in Northern Ireland[1], there's no problem if you are able to finance a trip abroad but should you be of sound mind and decide you don't want to live any more, nothing can make that happen legally in the UK. I have watched people endure a terminal illness and while palliative care is better than it was, they still know what's coming; the option to take a nice big dose of morphine/midazolam would have made their suffering less terrible. Prolonging life is a noble intention, but willfully prolonging suffering is pure barbarism.
[1] Though it looks like this is less of an issue now. Still not a non-issue, unfortunately.