Tagged: Compassionate Choices

Posted: July 6, 2012 at 6:54 am

The Montana GOP Hypocrite of the Week Award Goes to…

…a right-wing group calling itself “Montanans Against Assisted Suicide. This is the group that is fighting to revoke the right of terminally ill patients to request aid in dying from their physicians.

You see, GOP-ers are always trying to say that they oppose the Affordable Care Act because “it puts a bureaucrat between you and your doctor.”  Meanwhile, its minions at the so-called “Montanans Against Assisted Suicide” are fighting to insert politicians and crackpots into that relationship at every turn.

Basically, these guys can’t win in Montana.  We’re a state that doesn’t want the government deciding what health care is best for us. At all.

They’ve lost at the Montana Supreme Court level. They lost at the state legislative level–even in the Bat Crap Crazy Legislative Session of 2011. The general public in Montana wants access to aid in dying—and wants these decisions to be between doctors and patients.  And now they’ve lost with the Montana Board of Medical Examiners.  They’ve got no game.  So they’re reduced to making litigious threats against doctors and the non-profit group Compassion & Choices, as you can see from this bucket of crazy.  People that want to control other people’s lives get very frustrated when they’re not allowed to do it. This is what that frustration looks like.

The fact that these guys are so frustrated is a testament to the people of Montana. Government has no business coming between citizens and their end-of-life decisions.  And so, for continuing to attempt exactly what the critics of “Obamacare” claim to worry about most: forcing the government between a patient and a doctor–this group is the Montana GOP Hypocrite of the Week. 

But don’t feel too bad, “Montanans Against Assisted Suicide.”  This hypocrisy is just as embarrassing for the GOP as it is for you.

Posted: February 3, 2011 at 12:08 pm

Congratulations 7th State Senate District. You Are Now Represented by a Carpetbagger Lobbyist.

As part of his effort to overturn the Montana Supreme Court decision on compassionate end of life decisions and aid in dying, Montana State Senator Hinkle (R-TEA Thompson Falls) has brought in some help from New Hampshire in the form of one Nancy Elliot. Word on the street is that this Elliot is running around the legislature trying to convince Hinkle’s peers to vote for his nutty bills to overturn the law.

The former New Hampshire lawmaker turned lobbyist (this kind of revolving door situation is illegal in Montana) has a thing for government intervening into the private lives of citizens—and also apparently a preoccupation with things..um..anal.

Constituents aren’t happy, as is evident in a LTE in the Missoulian this week from a constituent chastising Hinkle for focusing on this — instead of the economy:

Hinkle, I voted for you, thinking you were smart enough to create laws for Montana without going to New Hampshire for laws you could copy. There is too much of this now in Montana.

The people of Montana hear nothing of the property tax problem that is building – that being property has lost over 50 percent of its value across the state. But the property tax stays the same – while the property holders wait for the state to revalue property up to 10 years.
Also, the unemployment situation is alarming. Why in the world don’t you work on something like this and leave something that has already been ruled on alone?

I don’t want to see you legislate a law that tells me how and when I am going to die.
Please let Hinkle know how you feel and to back off any ideas he has to control your life.

Hinkle has two different bills to do the same thing, overturn the Baxter decision prohibiting politicians from interfering in private personal decisions.  Both are up for hearings next week at the same time, so it looks like he didn’t fool anyone.

02/09/2011
8:00 AM
303
SB 169
Provide for suicide predator penalty enhancement (this bill actually simply prohibits physician assisted end of life options-don’t be fooled)
(S) Judiciary
02/09/2011
8:00 AM
303
SB 116
Prohibit physician-assisted end of life options
(S) Judiciary