New bill threatens medical patients' rights.

0:00 Speaker 1 Sunday morning. Well, lots of things happening. There’s a law about to be signed or not signed by Governor Hoco, and it’s called something like an assistant suicide In other words, that doctors will have the right to help somebody commit suicide if it’s deemed so. But let’s get a better explanation.

0:28 What is today is Matt Valerie Valeri Valeri, He’ll tell us who is executive director of the Institute for Patients’ Rights, and he’s concerned. He is concerned that if you’re worth more than a million bucks and your kid wants to turn over, and you’re in the hospital and your kid wants to turn off the the the oxygen, what happens. Well, Matt,

0:58 give us your concerns and what the heck is going on? And I understands a bill in front of the Governor’s desk.

1:05 Speaker 2 Yes, John, thanks so much for having me the bill that is currently before the governor. Actually, you kind of nailed it when you said that this gives rights to the doctors. So it’s crafted as a way of having more choice at the end of life and autonomy and removing suffering for patients. But it doesn’t actually do anything

1:27 for patients. What the law does is remove the usual liabilities that medical professionals would be under if they were to help somebody to kill themselves. So, normally speaking, if you or I expressed to the desire to harmer kill ourselves in a medical setting, they would give us suicide prevention care and services and do everything they could to

1:45 stop us from harming ourselves. Except if this law were to be signed by the governor, it would allow a doctor to help a patient to kill themselves under certain circumstances with impunity. And so the normal protections for the vulnerable people expressing a desire to harmor kill themselves in medical setting would all go out the window if that

2:06 particular patient happens to have a life threatening disability, and so those disabilities. Most people when they think assisted suicide, they’re thinking somebody in their nineties or stage four inoperable metastatic cancer. But what actually the law says is that somebody with six months or less prognosis, Every single person with a six month or less prognosis has a condition

2:29 that renders that prognosis. All of those conditions are disabilities, and so they could be cancer. Yes, but there are places where it’s been legalized in other parts of the country where they’re helping young women with anorexia to kill themselves.

2:42 Who’s the doctor deems have a hopeless case. There are people who get off their insulin as diabetics who are also depressed, and they get off the infant in order to qualify for lethal drugs. These all they have a bunch of supposed safeguards in the New York bill, but it’s actually the weakest bill that’s out there comparatively to

3:05 even the other states that have legalized, and those safeguards that are in there, they’re all circumventable and actually worthless. In fact, New York’s bill doesn’t even have a residency requirement, so it would make New York State a worldwide suicide destination.

3:23 So we’ve been encouraging and many of the allies on this issue, both right and left, I have been encouraging the governor to veto this terrible bill. You know, there was bipartisan opposition to this bill in Albany, which is not usually the case on social issues. There are many Democrats that are very, very concerned that this will harm

3:44 vulnerable people and put people who are already in difficult circumstances are even greater risk of deadly Hartman discrimination.

3:52 Speaker 1 Now, let me ask you. When we were together the other day, you were even more concerned about a bill going on in the rest of the country where it says doctors could help an erection girls or ladies commit suicide to relieve them of their pain.

4:14 Speaker 2 Yeah. So, in fact, the New York bill would also allow this, and it’s any all of these assisted suicide bills. You know, there are ten jurisdictions, ten states and eleven jurisdictions, so ten states plus DC that have legalized assistant suicide.

4:32 In all of those places, somebody with interaction or another eating disorder has access to lethal drugs from their doctor. These same doctors who are supposed to be helping these young people to live and to get beyond their mental health disabilities. You know, if Governor Holker were to sign this bill, that would happen there in New York. You know,

4:56 you’ve got a situation where these bills are interpreted in any way that the medical professional at hand is that it’s going to be. And there have been a number of publicized cases of young women with anorexia being prescribed lethal drugs under similar assistant suicide laws to the one that is headed to the Governor’s desk. It’s not yet

5:24 been sent to her office, so the time clock is not yet ticking on her to sign her veto. But when it does get there, she’s got to recognize that she could be putting young women at risk, daughters like my own or your own. I mean, we both have girls.

5:39 It’s frightening and there’s nothing that we could do about it. If that became the case under New York law.

5:48 Speaker 1 That is horrible that it’s horrible both ways because I went through an experience where it happened to one of my friends and it’s very, very sad. We got a minute left. You have anything else that’s tell the American people.

6:09 Speaker 2 Well, John, I appreciate you know you’re having me on. The big thing on this issue is that it’s not a wedge issue. They are progressives who oppose their conservatives who are for it. I think it’s important to take a harder look at this issue and understand the implications of what these laws do in real time. They put

6:31 real people at risk of deadly harm. When you have a two tiered system of medicine where some people get suicide prevention, other people get suicide help. You’ve set up a situation where the vulnerable people are going to get the short end of the stick, which is why we and some of our allies have filed lawsuits in California

6:52 and in Colorado to overturn the assistant suicide laws there, and hopefully we get to the Supreme Court and they abolish these laws all day together.

7:02 Speaker 1 Well, thank you so much, and tell us is there a website that people can visit on for you either contribute or learn more about it.

7:13 Speaker 2 Sure to learn more to contribute p R A f dot org, Paul Ralph Adamfrank dot org. We’ll get you to the Patient’s Rights Action fun and you can learn a lot more about this issue and the implications of legalizing assistant suicide there. My name is Matt Valier. I’m happy to talk to anyone as willing to listen.

7:35 Speaker 1 Thank you so much, and we’ll catch up with you. And we pray for sanity, and we play and we pray. We pray for religion because this would not happen ten years ago, twenty years ago, thirty years ago. Well, I don’t know what’s happening to America right now. Thank you so much.

7:54 Speaker 2 Thank you John, take care