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BY BARTHOLOMEW JAMES
On February 9, California state assemblywoman Patty Berg (D-Eureka) introduced a bill to extend the Caregiver Tax Credit, which is scheduled to expire this year, to the year 2010. The tax credit is used by people who take care of an adult or child who needs assistance with daily activities such as bathing, eating, and getting dressed. “These people do their families and this state a great service,” Berg said in a press release. “They care for those who might otherwise have to be placed in a nursing home or special care facility.” Berg, who serves as chair of the assembly committee on aging and long term care, said that “a lot of these hardworking families are struggling with a heavy burden. This credit is a small but meaningful way to help them.”
One week after she proposed extending the Caregiver Tax Credit, Berg announced she was introducing another bill, co-sponsored by Assemblyman Lloyd Levine (D-Van Nuys), that will arguably help hardworking families struggling with a heavy burden. The new proposal, however, is considerably more controversial than the tax credit. The legislation Berg and Levine introduced is known formally as the California Compassionate Choices Act (AB 654), and less formally as the doctor-assisted suicide bill. Modeled after a similar Oregon law, which has now been in effect for seven years, the act will allow doctors to prescribe fatal doses of medication to terminally ill patients who have less than six months to live. Two doctors would have to concur on the terminal diagnosis and verify that the patient is capable of making the decision to end his own life. The patient would have to make two oral requests and one written request to die before being allowed to self-administer a lethal dose of medication.
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The California Catholic Conference points out that the Catechism of the Catholic Church states that euthanasia is morally unacceptable and that “those whose lives are diminished or weakened deserve special respect.” The conference notes that Pope John Paul II wrote in his 1995 encyclical, Evangelium Vitæ, “…when earthly existence draws to a close, it is again charity which finds the most appropriate means for enabling the elderly, especially those who can no longer look after themselves, and the terminally ill, to enjoy genuinely human assistance and to receive an adequate response to their needs, in particular their anxiety and their loneliness.” The conference is asking all Catholics to take time to advocate against the Berg bill by, among other things, contacting members of the legislative committees that will scrutinize the proposal.
What the conference, however, doesn’t mention is that Assemblywoman Berg is Catholic.
“I am a Roman Catholic, a practicing Roman Catholic,” Berg told me. “To me, the bill is all about the freedom of the individual to make choices, and it respects the freedom for your choices to be different from my choices, and the people of California get that,” she said. Before joining the assembly, Berg spent 19 years as the founding executive director of the Area Agency on Aging in Humboldt and Del Norte Counties. She said that and other experiences gave her the idea for the assisted suicide legislation. “It’s something that I have felt passionately about for a long time. I’ve worked in the field of senior citizens for about 25 years and have dealt with a lot of death and dying,” she said…
Full article
On February 9, California state assemblywoman Patty Berg (D-Eureka) introduced a bill to extend the Caregiver Tax Credit, which is scheduled to expire this year, to the year 2010. The tax credit is used by people who take care of an adult or child who needs assistance with daily activities such as bathing, eating, and getting dressed. “These people do their families and this state a great service,” Berg said in a press release. “They care for those who might otherwise have to be placed in a nursing home or special care facility.” Berg, who serves as chair of the assembly committee on aging and long term care, said that “a lot of these hardworking families are struggling with a heavy burden. This credit is a small but meaningful way to help them.”
One week after she proposed extending the Caregiver Tax Credit, Berg announced she was introducing another bill, co-sponsored by Assemblyman Lloyd Levine (D-Van Nuys), that will arguably help hardworking families struggling with a heavy burden. The new proposal, however, is considerably more controversial than the tax credit. The legislation Berg and Levine introduced is known formally as the California Compassionate Choices Act (AB 654), and less formally as the doctor-assisted suicide bill. Modeled after a similar Oregon law, which has now been in effect for seven years, the act will allow doctors to prescribe fatal doses of medication to terminally ill patients who have less than six months to live. Two doctors would have to concur on the terminal diagnosis and verify that the patient is capable of making the decision to end his own life. The patient would have to make two oral requests and one written request to die before being allowed to self-administer a lethal dose of medication.
…
The California Catholic Conference points out that the Catechism of the Catholic Church states that euthanasia is morally unacceptable and that “those whose lives are diminished or weakened deserve special respect.” The conference notes that Pope John Paul II wrote in his 1995 encyclical, Evangelium Vitæ, “…when earthly existence draws to a close, it is again charity which finds the most appropriate means for enabling the elderly, especially those who can no longer look after themselves, and the terminally ill, to enjoy genuinely human assistance and to receive an adequate response to their needs, in particular their anxiety and their loneliness.” The conference is asking all Catholics to take time to advocate against the Berg bill by, among other things, contacting members of the legislative committees that will scrutinize the proposal.
What the conference, however, doesn’t mention is that Assemblywoman Berg is Catholic.
“I am a Roman Catholic, a practicing Roman Catholic,” Berg told me. “To me, the bill is all about the freedom of the individual to make choices, and it respects the freedom for your choices to be different from my choices, and the people of California get that,” she said. Before joining the assembly, Berg spent 19 years as the founding executive director of the Area Agency on Aging in Humboldt and Del Norte Counties. She said that and other experiences gave her the idea for the assisted suicide legislation. “It’s something that I have felt passionately about for a long time. I’ve worked in the field of senior citizens for about 25 years and have dealt with a lot of death and dying,” she said…
Full article