The NEW Congressional assault on the right to die - H.R. 1151

[Nothing Without Hope]

This is currently on journalist Doug Ireland's blog site but will be moved to LA Weekly over the next day (see links below).

http://direland.typepad.com/direland/2005/04/the_new_congres.html

THE NEW CONGRESSIONAL ASSAULT ON THE RIGHT TO DIE

I wrote the following for the L.A. Weekly (http://www.laweekly.com), on whose website it will appear tonight, and in its print edition tomorrow:

Poor Terri Schiavo, at long last, has now been mercifully released from the prison of her lifeless body--but if you think that puts an end to the Republicans’ assault on the right to die with dignity, think again. Another attempt to pass sweeping federal restrictions on that right will soon be made by the GOP Congress--even as California’s legislature is poised to pass a new law giving some terminally ill the right to legally obtain prescriptions for, and take, life-ending medication.

The chairman of the Senate health committee, reactionary Republican Mike Enzi of Wyoming, this week opens hearings on proposals for more federal control of an individual’s right to choose death without suffering. In the House, a member of the powerful Appropriations Committee, Florida GOP Rep. Dave Weldon--a doctor who is an opponent of stem cell research, and a condom opponent who has tried to slash funding for HIV prevention--has, with the approval of Speaker Dennis Hastert, reintroduced a bill which the House passed two weeks ago but the Senate subsequently rejected. This bill -- H.R. 1151, the so-called “Incapacitated Person’s Legal Protection Act”-- requires federal courts to intervene at the request of any family member or loved one if a state court “authorizes or directs” the withholding of food or life support when there is an alleged dispute over the patient’s wishes. (Florida Christian primitive Mel Martinez, Bush’s former Housing Secretary, has introduced the same bill in the Senate).

If this bill becomes law, the federal courts would be clogged with thousands of Schiavo cases, in which parents or relatives who are religious extremists could obstruct an individual’s wish to die without suffering, through litigation that could drag on for years.

(snip - more at link)

[Nothing Without Hope]

1. kick

[Nothing Without Hope]

2. kick - this is worth some attention n/t

[Nothing Without Hope]

3. Worth one more try n/t