Journal pudge's Journal: I-1000 Requires Death Certificate Falsification 4
Amazing, but true: I-1000 requires doctors to write down a false cause of death. In a sane society where we value truth from our government and public documents, this would be enough to kill the initiative.
The attending physician may sign the patient's death certificate which shall list the underlying terminal disease as the cause of death.
Yes, it means what it says: the death certificate shall -- must -- have the underlying disease as the cause of death, even though it wasn't the actual cause of death. The government requires doctors to lie about how people died.
The Yes-on-I-1000 give a completely illogical analogy to defend against this claim, saying, "Just as when physicians discontinue an artificial respiratory or kidney dialysis, or help someone die by continuous sedation, the underlying disease is legally and accurately the cause of death." But in those cases, the cause of death actually is the underlying disease.
Proponents are intentionally blurring the distinction between allowing someone to die by withholding treatment, and causing their death.
I am generally against I-1000 because I don't like the government getting involved in these sorts of decisions, which is what I-1000 represents. And this is a good example of why it's so dangerous.
Cross-posted on <pudge/*>.
Caling Dr. Kevorkian (Score:2)
I'm with you on this one, although I had to click the link to find out what I-1000 was. I take it it's a state initiative to legalize euthanasia?
Now, I'm for letting a person decide their own fate; I don't think suicide should be illegal. But the bill you're writing about sounds seriously flawed.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, I am not necessarily against the principle, but this sets up a ton of government regulation in the process.
Why can't they have multiple selections? (Score:1)
Is the data structure so poorly constructed that they cannot have multiple answers? It would be useful to know statistically that a suicide was related to alcoholism or clinical depression, instead of putting 'alcoholism' as the cause of death.
Re: (Score:2)
Is the data structure so poorly constructed that they cannot have multiple answers?
No. The INITIATIVE is so poorly constructed that it requires only one answer, the "underlying disease."