Letters: Sen. Sam Aanestad against California's AB 2747

Patients facing terminal illness need information based on who they are as individuals and what their doctor thinks, not an intrusion into their relationship with their doctor dictated by politicians.

California's AB 2747, the "Terminal Patients' Right to Know End-of-Life Options Act," interferes with the care of people receiving the worst news of their lives.

Sponsored by the former Hemlock Society, a group promoting physician-assisted suicide, the bill mandates doctors to give government-specified information to terminally ill patients.

As an oral surgeon who has cared for thousands of patients, I can't imagine letting the government dictate what dying patients need to hear, and when they should hear it.

As a breast cancer surgeon told me, "It would be cruel to take a list of treatments that may not even apply to my patient and tell her, ‘Here, this is what the California Legislature said I have to tell you when you find out you're dying and you ask me what to do.'"

Terminally ill patients need comfort and compassion. What they don't need is an intrusion into their relationship with the doctor who knows them best.

If you oppose government intrusion into the lives of the terminally ill, please call the governor at (916) 445-2841 and urge him to veto AB 2747.

Sam Aanestad

California state senator