Sacramento, CA (LifeNews.com) -- Sacramento, CA -- The California legislature has put the finishing touches on a bill opposed by pro-life groups there that puts vulnerable patients at risks and has physicians promoting suicide. The measure fell short of legalizing the grisly practice of assisted suicide but drew condemnation from pro-life groups because of its suicide-promoting provisions.

AB 2747 originally had the purpose of legalizing assisted suicide but was amended in committee to urge doctors to inform patients how they can legally end their lives.

The California Assembly gave final approval to the bill on Thursday with 42 Democrats voting in favor of the pro-suicide measure and 30 Republicans and two Democrats voting against it.

Brian Johnston, the head of the California Pro-Life Council and one of the leading pro-life groups opposing the bill, told LifeNews.com the measure “exploits the vulnerable emotions of newly diagnosed patients, and requires physicians to present the legal option of self-dehydration, even if such counsel is against the best judgment of the physician."

He said it “mandates that caregivers instruct these medically dependent individuals that they can choose to deny themselves food and water, that the physician must abet this, and keep them sedated as they die.”

Not only does the bill promote suicide, it forces physicians who don't want to be involved in the grisly practice to refer cases to doctors who don't mind pushing death on their patients.

"If the attending physician does not believe it is in the best interest of the patient to be guided into this 'knowledge,' they are required to excuse themselves and turn the patient over to a physician who does agree that this is something a patient with a terminal diagnosis be told," Johnston added.

Gov. Schwarzenegger has twelve days from the day the legislature transmit’s the bill to him to eighter sign or veto the legislation or allow it to become law without his signature. If the measure is transmitted on the last day of the legislative session, the goveror would have 30 days to take action or let it become law.

Randy Thomasson, president of Campaign for Children and Families, also strongly opposed AB 2747 and told LifeNews.com that it is “highly-controversial” legislation that would promote suicide to patients who have been diagnosed as supposedly terminally ill.

"AB 2747 pushes suicide through the back door at the hands of non-physicians taking advantage of depressed patients," Thomasson said. “It cheapens the value of human life by endorsing suicide as an option.”

“The measure allows a physician assistant or a nurse to opine that a patient is 'terminal,' and then push for unnatural death by 'palliative sedation,’” he explained. "Depressed patients who succumb to this pressure will be drugged unconscious and die from dehydration, usually within five to 10 days. Nothing in the bill prohibits this horror."

Thomasson called on Governor Schwarzenegger to pledge to veto “this very dangerous bill."

During the floor debate on the legislation, Assemblyman Van Tran said the “potential effect of AB 2747 is extremely broad and could cause irrevocable harm to many people who could be mistakenly diagnosed as 'terminally ill' but would have many, many full years of life ahead."

ACTION: Contact the governor and urge strong opposition to signing AB 2747 or letting it become law. You can urge the governor to veto the bill by contacting him at Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, State Capitol Building, Sacramento, CA 95814, or calling 916-445-2841, or faxing 916-558-3160.

Related web sites:
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger - http://gov.ca.gov
California Pro-Life Council - http://www.californiaprolife.org

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