Facilities in four states claim they’ll risk losing federal funding if they allow assisted suicide.
The Atlantic
The state of California passed a law three years ago that allows terminally ill people to take lethal drugs to end their lives, but controversy is growing over a newer rule that effectively bans that option in the state’s eight veterans’ homes.
Proponents of medical aid-in-dying and residents of the Veterans Home of California at Yountville – the largest in the nation – are protesting a regulation passed in 2016 by the California Department of Veterans Affairs, or CalVet, that requires that anyone living in the facilities must be discharged if they intend to use the law.
That’s a position shared by most – but not all – states where aid-in-dying is allowed. As more U.S. jurisdictions consider whether to legalize the practice, the status of terminally ill veterans living in state-run homes will loom large . . . [Full Text]