Your voice is urgently needed! A bill (HB 471) has been introduced in the Florida State House to legalize the dangerous and discriminatory policy of assisted suicide. It is currently in the House Committee on Public Health.

Please take a few moments to send a message today to your State Representative asking them to oppose these bills. It is vital that they hear from you!

The dangerous policy of assisted suicide puts our most vulnerable neighbors at significant risk. We must remind our legislators that suicide is not medical care, and we deserve better access to quality care, such as in-home hospice and palliative care, not an ill-conceived public policy that puts patients at risk of mistakes, coercion, and abuse. Despite proponent claims, the facts are clear that people access assisted suicide for reasons of disability, not for pain. 

Here are some of the reasons why they must oppose assisted suicide:

• Patients have been denied coverage for lifesaving treatment and offered assisted suicide instead.
• Young women with anorexia have been given lethal drugs by their doctor under this same policy in Colorado and Oregon. 
• Pain and suffering, or even concern about it, never make it into the top 5 reasons why patients die by assisted suicide in Oregon.  Rather, the most commonly cited reasons are disability related concerns, which is why the National Council on Disability rejects assisted suicide.
• Mental conditions are ignored and depressed patients receive the lethal medications. 
• Doctors make mistakes and patients who are not dying receive the prescription drugs. 

 Assisted suicide laws abandon vulnerable patients and they impact everyone’s end of life care. Florida State Reps would be making a grave mistake to pursue these bills.

Please fill out the form and urge your State Representative to reject HB 471 today.