Legislative Action Alert

AB 651, the bill to legalize physician-assisted suicide, would make CA the second state in the nation where doctors could prescribe medication to hasten the deaths of terminally ill adults, and would set a dangerous precedent in the United States. Oregon currently has such a regimen in which euthanasia advocates are free to counsel and dispense lethal 'medical treatment' with no external scrutiny; there are no penalties for failure to report the shadowy practice.

Aware of the lack of support for the bill, Assembly Member Berg and her co-sponsors used a last minute political maneuver to put the bill in the Senate, instead of the Assembly; their hope is to buy time and gain support. By way of a 'gut and amend', they hijacked a bill to provide health care for the chronically ill poor and replaced it with the assisted suicide bill. Don't let the bill outrun its opposition! Now more than ever we need to communicate with our legislators!

Call, Fax or E-Mail your representatives. The phone numbers for your state legislators can be found under "Senate" and "Assembly" in the "State Government" pages of your telephone book. Comment on this bill and email your Senate and Assembly representatives individually. Gov. Schwarzenegger has not yet taken a position, help him make the right decision!

Send a message in your own words, or feel free to use all or part of the following: Please oppose the legalization of physician-assisted suicide. This practice undermines the basic trust of the doctor-patient relationship; it poses risks of coercion and outside pressure, creates temptation for overworked doctors to ease their workload, and provides opportunities for unscrupulous physicians to cover up malpractice or misdeeds. In every jurisdiction voluntary euthanasia has been authorized, it has been abused. Effective pain management is available for even the most painful of illnesses and cancers. As a voting citizen of California I strongly oppose the Levine/Berg bill. Please do the same.

You can also order our pre-printed postcards in Spanish and English as a simple and effective way for your community to encourage your representatives' opposition to this measure. Each set includes a message for Governor Schwarzenegger, your Assembly Member, and your Senator. As part of the effort, we will inform you of how they vote on this issue.

President Bush has vowed that federal funds will not be used to support research that requires killing human embryos, but the U.S. House of Representatives has voted to approve “Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act." This legislation would authorize federally funded research using stem cells from human embryos who are donated by their biological parents; the process of removing the stem cells will kill the embryos. The bill moves to Senate next, where the outcome is uncertain.

From this week's (May 30) edition of TIME magazine: "Writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers at Duke University Medical Center reported that infants born with a fatal nerve disorder have been helped -- and perhaps even saved -- by treatment with stem cells taken from the umbilical cords of healthy babies. Of course, the stem cells used at Duke are not the kind that have caused so much anguish and debate in the U.S. Because these cells are taken not from embryos but from cord or placenta blood, they are both more developed and less versatile than embryonic stem cells. But they are also less controversial because no potential human lives are lost if the cells are destroyed. Yet they seem to have great potential for battling certain illnesses."

ACTION:
Please communicate with your Senate representatives, urging them to support President Bush’s pro-life policy and to oppose legislation that would authorize federal funding of research that requires killing human embryos. Urge other pro-life citizens to do the same. Contact your CA Senators here, remind them that you vote pro-life and they should too.

California ProLife Council (CPLC) (www.californiaprolife.org.) is the largest statewide organization in California solely dedicated to pro-life issues. CPLC is a non-sectarian, non-partisan, non-profit grassroots organization of pro-life groups and individuals in California dedicated to protecting and fostering the most basic value of our society- respect for LIFE itself. We seek to educate our community in regard to abortion, euthanasia, and infanticide, to identify and organize the pro-life population of the state into an effective team, and to restore respect for human life to public policy. California ProLife Council is the California affiliate of the National Right to Life Committee, Inc. (www.nrlc.org)

Legislative Action Alerts