(LifeNews)
Last week the Oregon Senate passed Senate Bill 494. Touted as a “simple update” to Oregon’s current advance directive, this bill is designed to allow for the starving and dehydrating to death of patients with dementia or mental illness.
Senator Betsy Johnson was the only Democrat to vote ‘no’ and Senator Jeff Kruse was the only Republican to vote ‘yes.’
Senate Bill 494 is little more than the state colluding with the healthcare industry to save money on the backs of mentally ill and dementia patients. This bill would remove current safeguards in Oregon’s advance directive statute that protect conscious patients’ access to ordinary food and water when they no longer have the ability to make decisions about their own care.
As Oregon Right to Life explains, he bill, pushed by big insurance companies and which has been amended more than once, is touted as simply creating a process of updating Oregon’s advance directive. However, even with its amendments, SB 494 will allow for the starving and dehydrating to death of patients with dementia or mental illness.
“It’s disheartening that the proponents of Senate Bill 494 have sold it as a basic ‘update’ to Oregon law,” said Gayle Atteberry, Oregon Right to Life executive director. “The reality is that it will remove current safeguards in Oregon’s advance directive statute that protect conscious patients’ access to ordinary food and water when they no longer have the ability to make decisions about their own care.”
How SB 494 works:
Under current law, if it’s not clear what a mentally incompetent person desires or wants, the person’s health care representative does not have the authority to end the incompetent person’s life unless the person is in a specific end-of-life situation. Read more